


two types of sacrifices

by theundiagnosable



Series: cccu [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, because the found family trope is where i live, feat. hockey and chess and senior dogs, i'm allowed one (1) scruffy sad straight white man oc and this is him, technically a love story but mostly a family story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21826801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theundiagnosable/pseuds/theundiagnosable
Summary: They get shut out the last game of the season, which, yeah, just about sums things up.
Series: cccu [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1484207
Comments: 145
Kudos: 212





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- i was thinking a lot about parents and family and obligation and then my dog died and i sublimated all those things into a hockey novel??? apparently???   
>  \- i might throw this up on kobo or something if people would like a prettier formatted ebook lmk [edit: [heck yeah ebook](https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/two-types-of-sacrifices) ]

They get shut out the last game of the season, which, yeah, just about sums things up.

Tanner pretty much knew what he was getting into when he signed with the Sharks. Comes with the territory of a rebuild. No one expects him to drag them to the cup – management as good as told him that he’s here for twenty-ish goals and a veteran leadership presence in the room, which is a polite way of saying he’s old and cheap but with enough residual name recognition to get guys skating hard in a tank season. Tanner doesn’t mind it. He’s signed ‘til he’s forty, which is longer than anyone else was offering, and he gets to play top line minutes and not have to shovel snow. Winning all around.

Except on the ice. Some more winning there would’ve been nice, probably.

Coach doesn’t keep them for long, after the game. Not much left to say. Most of the guys closer to Tanner’s age skulk home to kids and wives and whatever, but Tanner trails the rest of the team to the bar.

It’s not exactly a fun night out. Andy does a few shots and heads out with the first girl who’s willing. Happens to be the first girl he talks to – Andy’s handsome enough to compensate for his personality, which, given the personality he has, is really fucking saying something – and he doesn’t even attempt to high five Tanner on his way out, which by his standards is downright miserable.

Tanner hangs around the young guys for a while to make sure they aren’t veering too far into either sad or stupid; then, when he’s contented himself that they’re at acceptable levels of both, he looks around, sees Iggy sitting at the bar by himself, and heads over to join him.

Iggy barely looks up when Tanner slides into the seat next to him, just keeps staring into his vodka. He put on a good face for the media and the younger callups after the team got gutted at the deadline, but now, with hockey done and no one important watching, he’s taking it hard, his first season with the C on his jersey and nothing but thirtieth place in the league to show for it.

“Next season, Cap,” Tanner says, stirring whatever’s left of his sprite around his glass with the straw as he nods over to the bartender for refills.

“It’s better if we’re finish last, you know?” Iggy grumbles, because he gets exponentially more Russian when he’s emotional or wasted and right now he’s both. “If we don’t win draft, I’m jumping off a fucking bridge.”

“That’s the spirit, Iggs,” Tanner says.

Iggy’s still hunched over in his seat, scowling. “This is just _massive_ waste of year,” he sulks. “What if we pick third? Or second? What if we get first and the kid is not as good as they say, huh?”

“They say he’s really good,” Tanner says, and it’s not even a platitude, because the kid’s supposed to be the second coming, which Tanner knows because he’s been following the draft rankings all year, because that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re one of the worst teams in the league.

The bartender slides their drinks over. Iggy downs half of his in one gulp without even wincing. It’s that kind of night.

Tanner looks at the bubbles in his soda, then at Iggy. Veteran presence. “Hey,” he says, firm, and holds on for Iggy to meet his eyes. “To picking first.” He lifts his drink and waits, stubborn, ‘til Iggy rolls his eyes and touches his glass to Tanner’s.

“To Christopher fucking Chan,” Iggy toasts, only a little bit sarcastic. “Let’s hope he’s worth it.”

\---

Summer goes about the same as it has every year for a decade: Tanner packs a bag of essentials, coaxes Stacy into her carrier, and flies up the coast and in; gets back to the family house and finally feels like he can breathe.

The property’s roomy, big yard around a big house, all hemmed in by whatever trees are managing to survive this close to the tree line. Only a couple of the dogs bother to bark when Tanner and Stacy head through the door. They’re technically fosters, and a couple of them will end up adopted, maybe, but most of them are seniors who aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, too old or too sick or too far north for people to think they’re worth it. Their loss, Tanner figures. Not like he’s got better things to spend his money on.

He’s mostly unnecessary beyond signing cheques and putting out dog food, but he tries to keep aware of what’s going on in the community, to help things move along. He helps out at an adoption drive at the annual music festival. Jason, the year-rounder who takes care of the dogs when Tanner’s gone during the season, knows a lady from his band council who knows how to set up websites, which Tanner figures is probably good for exposure for the dogs, so he greenlights that as well.

Tanner keeps himself busy, enjoys the peace. He hangs out with the fosters more often than not, talking to the sick ones and running around with the ones who can still run to burn some of their energy. It’s a decent workout for him too, more fun than the official trainer-mandated stuff he’ll have to do later in the offseason.

He can usually kill a good chunk of the mornings doing that, and then the afternoons are for playing chess on the app on his phone while Stacy naps on his lap.

“Want to let me up to get coffee?” he asks eventually, and Stace just ignores him entirely, like _how dare you_ , so Tanner stays where he’s at, starts another match, and lets her sleep. There’s a whole separate extension to the house for all the fosters, done up proper with nice big dog beds and blankets and all, but Tanner likes the company, so after dinner he lets the dogs wander the house until they fall asleep in their preferred spots on couches or carpets, while Stacy gets the place of honour on Tanner’s bed.

“You’re hogging all the room,” he tells her, and she deigns to wag her tail once, like she’s humouring him.

Next day, then the next, he does it all again.

It’s as good a summer as Tanner could reasonably expect. He half-heartedly watches the playoffs, significantly more than half-heartedly watches the Sharks win the draft lottery and trades a bunch of celebratory cross-time zone texts with Iggy. Media says Chan’s generational. Looks it, from the clips Tanner’s seen. Fuck knows they need it.

He plays more chess. Fixes the creaky step on the staircase for the fifty-millionth time and gets grease all over his already-worn through t-shirt from his fourth all-star game. Plays with the dogs. Plays more chess.

_Challenge your friends!_ the app says. Won’t even let him play board games against a computer in peace.

Mid-July, someone drives in from town with a cardboard box of puppies from the side of the road, and the poor things are scrawny as anything, spend all night crying even though Tanner sits up with them. They’ll be okay, he knows. The young ones always get adopted soon enough.

Aunt Claudia drives up to give them their shots and bring them down to the shelter in the city, and it’s just about as miserable as it always is, but it’s done fast and then Claudia checks Stacy while she’s here, making sure her arthritis isn’t getting worse. “She’s still getting around okay?”

“Think so,” Tanner says, scratching Stacy’s head to distract her while Claudia pokes at her legs. They’re at the kitchen table, same makeshift veterinary office it’s been for years. “I got little stairs for the bed and her couch.”

Claudia raises an eyebrow. “Her couch?”

“The couch,” Tanner corrects, but Claudia gives him a look like she knows fine well that Tanner mostly sits on the rug because his maltese claimed the side of the couch with a good view of the TV.

He chatters about nothing in particular, filling up the silence as Claudia starts packing up her vet stuff to go back in the van. She humours him for a while, tells him about driving three hours to get to these hikers who called about an injured deer that turned out to be a moose, and then, just when Tanner’s lulled into a false sense of security, she goes into aunt mode instead.

“You hear from your brother recently?” She doesn’t bother easing into tricky subjects, Aunt Claudia.

“End of the season,” Tanner says. “He brought Katie when we faced the ‘Nucks.”

“Hmph,” Claudia grumbles, which, sure, technically counts as a response. They both know how she feels about Garret and his family, so Tanner’s relieved when she changes tack, at least momentarily.

“You know you’ve been spending too much time in California, right?” she says, her own abrasive brand of affection. “I mean, the tattoos are one thing, but this _hair_.”

“Some say it’s ruggedly handsome.”

Claudia doesn’t buy it. “You look like a beach hobo.”

Tanner drags a hand through his hair, self-conscious. “I cut it, like, end of March.”

“It is _July_.” Claudia grabs Tanner’s chin like he’s a little kid, or maybe one of the animals she treats. “Do you know that? It’s important to me that you know that.”

Tanner shakes her off, but gently. He’s on the wrong side of thirty-five and has been there for a while, he doesn’t need mothering. Or- aunting. Can’t begrudge Claudia for trying, anyhow. “Claud, c’mon.”

“You’re never going to meet someone if you act like you’re never going to meet someone,” she chides.

“Who says I’m trying to?” Tanner asks instead of dwelling on trying to figure that one out, ‘cause Aunt Claud’s too smart for her own good, sometimes.

She doesn’t look like she believes him. Tanner probably wouldn’t either.

“Cut your damn hair,” is all she says, maybe a little bit pitying; and Tanner’s a grown man who can make his own decisions, but after Claudia leaves, he grabs the old scissors and trims his hair in the bathroom, then shaves his face for good measure.

He looks at his reflection and sighs.

His nose didn’t used to be this crooked. His face’ll be stubbly again by the end of the day, his hair shaggy by the end of the week, because it grows like a mop and has his whole life. Used to drive Lindsey crazy. She’d bug him about trying to look better, and he’d tried, for her.

Not like it really matters anymore. Even if it did, some stuff just- _is_ , nothing Tanner can do about it.

\---

California in summer isn’t the kind of heat you get used to. It’s going on Tanner’s second year here, and it still all but knocks him off his feet when he flies in for pre-season workouts.

Iggy’s not in the country yet and Tanner’s the only A in town this early, so he gets to play welcoming committee when the new kid arrives. He doesn’t mind – a first overall is a big deal, and the organization’s trying to put its best foot forward, even got Chan set up nice in Tanner’s building. It’s nice to be a friendly face for the rookies anyhow, plus it’s good practice interacting with humans again and not just babbling nonsense to a bunch of elderly dogs, ‘cause they’re not exactly great conversationalists, all due respect to the elderly dogs.

Tanner heads to the gym early on Friday, intending to be there when Chan arrives, but the kid is already mid-workout when Tanner gets in.

Huh. Eager.

“You even get the grand tour yet?” Tanner calls, dumping his stuff on the floor and heading over to the treadmills.

“After the draft, a little bit,” Chan says, pushing buttons on the treadmill. He jumped a little when Tanner spoke, like he was startled.

“Tanner Mackenzie,” Tanner offers, holding out his hand to shake as Chan steps down. “Mack’s good.”

“Hello,” Chan says. He’s disconcertingly large, enough that Tanner’s got to look up to meet his eyes, which doesn’t happen often. Still got a baby face. Tanner definitely didn’t look that young when he was eighteen, he doesn’t think. “I’m Chris. Christopher. Just- Chris.”

Just Chris is nervous. Tanner doesn’t think he’s looking particularly intimidating in shorts and a t-shirt that came in a pack of three from Walmart, but the kid’s nervous, same as he looked at the draft. “Management mentioned you’re living in my building, right?” Tanner prompts, trying to sound friendly.

“Yes,” Chris says. He’s got a soft voice. Matches the face. “I think so, yes.”

“Awesome, gimme your number, we’ll figure out carpooling, traffic here is hell.” Tanner fishes in his pocket, tosses Chris his phone once he’s got it open to the contacts page. Keeps talking while Chris types, keeping a straight face. “I hope you don’t mind morning singalongs, I’m very into musical theatre.”

Chris looks at him, clearly unsure what to do.

“That was a joke,” Tanner says, taking pity when it seems like Chris doesn’t get it; then, “I actually do opera. First soprano in the league.”

Chris furrows his brow. “Joke?” he asks, like he’s genuinely not sure.

Tanner nods, and Chris just nods too, like _I accept this_ and goes back to typing in his number, real slowly and carefully. Tough crowd. Maybe it’s a prodigy thing.

“Could I put my mom’s number in as well, please?” Chris asks. “In case of emergency.”

“Oh,” Tanner blinks, momentarily thrown. “Uh, yeah, go for it.”

“Not for weird reasons!” Chris says fast, and he’s bright red even though Tanner didn’t say anything. “Just because we don’t know anybody out here who’s a responsible adult so she made me promise to ask-”

“No, hey, kid, it’s cool,” Tanner reassures him. It’s a mom thing, probably. Fuck knows Tanner could’ve used that, his rookie season. “You want the full tour?”

“Yes, please,” Chris says, and he follows Tanner around, listens intently to everything. If he’s aware that he’s the only hope for their franchise and the most talked-about prospect in a generation, he doesn’t act like it. He acts… mostly like the type of person to put first and last names when he’s adding numbers to someone’s phone, to be frank. Christopher and Xiaozhi Chan, both spelled out in full. Worse ways to be, Tanner figures.

It’s the usual lead-up to the season, everyone trickling back into town slow and then all at once. There’s the usual start-of-season barbeque at Fish’s place, ‘cause he’s got the most room; the first couple of leadership meetings, just Tanner and Iggy wearing the letters because half the team are rookies or sophomores.

“What’s he like?” Iggy demands after skate one day, because ever since Tanner told him the phone story he’s been obsessed with making sure that Chris is going to work out the way they need. “You live with him, he’s the same away from the rink, like-” He makes a face that Tanner assumes is supposed to be his best ‘antisocial teenager’ impression.

“I don’t _live with him_ ,” Tanner says, but then, because Iggy won’t quit ‘til he gets an answer, “I mean, he’s- quiet.”

It’s an understatement. Tanner drives them to the rink every day through camp and after and still hasn’t been able to coax more than a few one sentence answers out of the kid. He knows Chris is living with his boyfriend, Luka, who’s a lot more chatty when Tanner meets him. Knows Luka’s going to be going to school in the area, and that his parents flew down to help move them in and then, just to make it a full family reunion, Chris’ mom shows up for a couple of days right as the season starts. She’s significantly shorter than her son, which is good, because if she was six-seven she’d be terrifying. As is, she’s just mildly intimidating, doesn’t smile once and greets Tanner with this curt kind of politeness that doesn’t invite conversation. Tanner can respect that, he supposes, so he just says hi and leaves it at that.

He’s not sure exactly what to expect from the first game of the season. He’s been practicing on Chris’ wing since camp, and the kid’s a fucking gift to play with, lives up to every bit of the hype and more, but still, there’s only so much you can tell from scrimmages and preseason.

What Tanner should’ve expected, it turns out, is Chris getting a goal and an assist, easily coming close to two more of each, and the team winning their home opener more decisively than they’ve won anything since before Tanner got here.

“ _You_ ,” Iggy points at Chris, once they’re back in the room. Chris looks mildly terrified. “I like you.” He claps Chris on the back, and Chris visibly relaxes, only to tense up all over again when Coach comes to shake his hand.

“First of many, I hope,” he says. Tanner can count on one hand the amount of times he looked this happy after a game, last season.

“Me too,” Chris says. “I mean- yes.”

Tanner turns away to smile so the kid won’t think he’s laughing at him; returns Coach’s nod as he heads out and sets about getting changed before the media rush in, and that’s another change from last season, when Tanner had to talk after almost every game, because by the fifth five-game losing streak of the season the media were getting pretty desperate and Tanner was the only one not responding in monosyllables. No one requests him tonight – they’ve got a real story, now – and it’s not the best feeling in the world, but it’s close.

“You want me to wait?” Tanner asks, and he’s planning on it because they drove in together, but Chris shakes his head.

“I can get a taxi with my mom and Luka,” he says. “But thank you.”

“Didn’t do anything for you to thank me for,” Tanner says, kind of chirping – the manners on this kid, jesus – but then he elbows Chris, can’t help feeling fond. Winning tends to do that. “Good game, kid.”

Chris does this tiny little smile before schooling his face; can’t quite pull off not looking proud. “Thanks.”

And the locker room is buzzing, stays that way even when Tanner slips out a while later. He catches up to Iggy on the way out, falls into step with him as they make their way through the parking garage.

“Hey,” Tanner says, elbowing Iggy. “Hey, Cap, worth it?”

Iggy laughs, bright, and shoves at Tanner so Tanner shoves him back, and the feeling, that hopeful feeling that was missing, the one that makes hockey what it is, it’s back.

\---

Tanner knows what to expect from hockey season by now, muscle memory built in every year of his life as far back as he can remember. Bumps and bruises going back just as far, and that part’s no different at the start of this season, but they’re growing pains instead of ‘dear god we’re awful’ pains, so they’re easier to take. Tanner can look objectively at it, the team’s October, and come out mostly optimistic. He’s got four goals. Mikey’s looking solid in net. They’re still losing more than they’re winning, but they’re losing with a fighting chance more than they get blown out, so, fine, marginal gains or whatever.

Tanner fucking loves hockey season; the way it leaves him worn to the bone with no time to get in his own head, which can only be a good thing. It fills up his days, getting herded between rinks and hotels and buses and the team plane, and that’s one good thing about being in the league longer than anyone but the GM, is that Tanner doesn’t have to sit with someone when they fly. He’s got a nice little routine for himself, the past couple years: Get through a game of chess, maybe two while he drinks a cup of coffee – decaf – then nap the rest of the time. Use the earplugs he bought himself if it’s a night flight, even though they inevitably inspire old man jokes from the guys, because they’re a bunch of jackass twenty year olds who can function on an hour’s rest.

They’ve all got routines on the plane as well. Mikey reads mystery novels in the seat behind Tanner. Iggs sits with the other Russians and gets heated about god knows what. The young guys have an ongoing poker tournament that takes up at least four rows of seats every flight, save for the one where Chris sits and looks at his phone.

“You wouldn’t fucking believe it, Mack,” Andy says, when Tanner tries to subtly check to make sure that their new first line centre is being included, or whatever. “I looked over his shoulder-”

“Real classy, Andy.”

“-and I swear to god, all he does all flight is watch game tape,” Andy continues, with far too much relish. God help Chris having to room with him. “He takes _notes_.”

So- yeah, that is admittedly a little weird. Tanner’s met other first overall picks, though, and they’ve all been a little weird, without exception, ‘cause you don’t get that good without being a little weird about hockey. Not Tanner’s place to judge, he rationalizes, if Chris’ brand of first-overall-weird manifests in the form of silently enduring Tanner’s country music on drives to the rink or coming up with some excuse every time the team goes out after a game.

They beat the Kings. Lose bad to the Jets. Tanner meets a friendly collie and its owner when he’s walking Stacy on Tuesday morning, so that’s the highlight of his week, socially speaking. He has to drop her with her sitter on Wednesday, early, so he can head to the airport for their deep south roadie, taking them headfirst into this dry heat that makes Tanner want to crawl out of his skin and escape to a higher latitude. They make the best of it, blowing out the Preds in a four point night for everyone on Tanner’s line, one of those rare games where he can almost convince himself they’re going to be contenders sooner rather than later. Their flight tomorrow isn’t until the afternoon, so no one puts up much of a fuss when Iggy gets the team bus driver to drop them at one of the dozens of bars with live music instead of back at the hotel.

Tanner catches a glimpse of Chris looking up from his phone, startled, when Iggy mentions the change of plans, but then the guys are cheering and starting to file off the bus, so Tanner lets himself focus on joining them, having fun. The place they’ve ended up at is nice, Tennessee tourist kitsch without being over the top. Tanner gets a sprite, same as always, hangs around with his usual group of the guys at a table by the stage, a safe distance from the bar.

“Ho-ly shit,” Fish whistles, a few beers in, talking loud to be audible over the guitar. He nods his head toward the group of people dancing, and Tanner looks over to see that Andy has somehow acquired a cowboy hat and is grinding between a woman and her less-than-enthused partner.

“Dumbass,” Mikey rolls his eyes, mostly-affectionately. “Can’t take him anywhere.”

“I didn’t know it was possible to dance slutty to songs with banjo,” Fish chimes in, looking genuinely a little curious.

“Thought you guys liked hick shit in Minny,” Tanner chirps, and Fish flips him off while Iggy and the boys cackle, and that gets the Russians get roped into the conversation and they start betting over/under on how long ‘til Andy gets punched, then Iggy doesn’t know how not to be competitive, so he begs a pen off the bartender and starts scrawling down everyone’s bets on a napkin.

It’s a good night. Good music, everyone having a good time at a mostly-acceptable indoor volume. Tanner’s the only one sober, so he’s the chaperone by default. Night like this, it’s not too big of a job, ‘cause it’s well into the season and the guys knows their priorities. Tanner’s mostly just making sure no one wanders off, keeping an eye on the time to start herding everyone back to the hotel, so it’s only after he glances over at Andy – still unpunched, Tanner owes half the d-core twenty bucks apiece – that Tanner realizes he hasn’t seen Chris in a while.

“Hey,” he raises his voice so the guys will hear him over the music. “Anyone seen the big guy?”

There’s a resounding chorus of ‘nope’s and shrugs and one suggestion of ‘maybe he’s hooking up?’ that Tanner dismisses out of hand, because he doesn’t have to have had more than minute-long conversations with Chris to get that he’s not the type, certainly not with a boy back at home.

And Tanner’s not _worried_ , really, but a rookie gone AWOL at a cowboy bar isn’t a recipe for anything good, so he does a lap of the place. No Chris by the bar or dancing or at any of the tables. Tanner wanders down the back hallway and doesn’t see Chris there either, so he heads into the men’s room and immediately almost trips over him.

“Woah,” Tanner says, relieved to have found him in one piece, even if that piece is sitting on the floor of the bathroom. His voice seems too loud, echoey away from the constant noise of the band. “This cannot be sanitary.” And he’s just joking around, running his mouth like always, only Chris doesn’t even look up, just stays hunched over. Tanner gets serious automatically. “You okay?”

Chris still doesn’t look at him. “Yes,” he says. “Please go away.” His voice breaks a little on the ‘go’, skipping like a scratched CD, _g-g-go,_ and – Tanner does a double take – he’s shaking, literally, visibly shaking, and breathing really fast. He looks miserable, and the floor’s still definitely not sanitary, but Tanner sits down next to him without a second thought.

Chris flinches when Tanner touches his arm. “I said-”

“I heard what you said, but I’m also not leaving you to have a panic attack on a bathroom floor, kid, sorry,” Tanner says; then, when Chris doesn’t respond, “Chris.”

Chris clasps his hands on his head, makes this little sound like he’s irritated, with Tanner or with himself.

“I’m just not very good at things with lots of people,” he says, speaking slow and intentional, like it’s taking effort. “You can go away, this happens still sometimes, I have- it’s not new.”

And Tanner’s mind is just going, putting together the way Chris always leaves fast after games, the way he never goes out with the guys. Tanner chalked it up to shyness, to generational-talent-weirdness, but that’s clearly not the extent of it, and the fact that Iggy rerouted the bus and Chris got roped into being here tonight without being given a choice in the matter- ah, hell, this is the kind of thing Tanner should’ve noticed sooner. Veteran leadership his ass.

Worry about that later.

“Okay,” Tanner says, keeping his voice real calm on purpose. First thing’s first. “You want me to call your mom?”

“ _No_ ,” Chris finally looks at him, eyes wide. “She’ll be worried about me, don’t - and Luka has a presentation tomorrow, you can’t say-”

“Okay,” Tanner says again, before Chris can spiral and start panicking all over. “That’s okay. We can just hang out here ‘til you feel better.”

Chris squeezes his eyes shut and doesn’t say anything at all.

“It’s not even the grossest place I’ve sat, to be honest with you,” Tanner says, mostly just to say something. He keeps talking for the same reason, a little loud, so he’ll be heard over the music from through the door. “My family would foster dogs, right? All the strays, all the really old, like, fucked-up dogs people didn’t want, even old sled dogs from across the border sometimes.”

“That was like, all I did after my mom died, basically just get home from games and sit out there with the dogs and not even talk to people.” He remembers the point of the story, a little belatedly. “You know how gross a room full of old dogs starts to stink? I probably smelled awful.”

“You don’t smell like dogs,” Chris mumbles, without opening his eyes. Progress, maybe?

“Hey, thanks, bud.” Tanner bumps their shoulders together, stays cheery when he keeps talking. “That’s how I got Stace, actually,” he says. “The fostering thing? The old lady who had her couldn’t keep her so she dropped her with us, only she was really small, not what we usually get at all, and I couldn’t just leave her with the big guys in case they thought she was a chew toy or something, y’know?”

So it’s more of that, Tanner veers away from personal stuff and just talks about Stacy and the dogs and pointless stories, just chattering to give Chris something else to focus on. He waves on the few people that give them weird looks when they come in to use the urinals, doesn’t quit his stories. He’s always been good at talking, or prone to it, at least, because he knows from experience that being alone with your thoughts isn’t fun, especially if they’re the kind of thoughts that make you curl up on the floor of a bar bathroom. He’s been there, more times than he’d care to remember. More times than he _can_ remember, probably.

Chris is listening. He doesn’t say much, but he’s listening, and Tanner watches as he loosens his hands, gradually quits wringing them together.

“Do you still foster dogs?” he asks, eventually, once Tanner pauses for breath.

“Yeah,” Tanner says, encouraged by the question. “Yeah, we stopped for a while but I bought the land off my dad when he retired plus the lot next door, this big fenced-in area. It’s massive now. I spend summer there.”

“How do you train?”

“Most of summer there,” Tanner corrects himself. Of course the kid asks about hockey. “You got any pets?”

Chris shakes his head, no. “I like dogs, though,” he says.

“Fuckin’ right you do,” Tanner says, emphatic. “Knew I liked you for a reason.” He grins at Chris, and Chris actually almost grins back, and then looks surprised at himself. He sort of blinks, looking at Tanner like he’s just now seeing him.

“You were distracting me,” he says, a little accusatory.

“It working?” Tanner asks, and Chris shrugs. He’s still bouncing his leg a little, but he’s not shaking anymore, not all curled up, so yeah, it’s working.

Tanner stretches out his legs. The floor really is disgusting. “Want to do twenty minutes out there?” he asks, keeping his voice light. “Twenty minutes, I’ll sit with you, then we can go back to the hotel?” Then, when Chris looks at him like he’s insane, “It’s just team.”

“What if I don’t want to do twenty minutes?”

“Then I’ll walk you back to the hotel now,” Tanner says, without missing a beat. “Team, remember?”

Chris looks wary, like he’s having an argument with himself. Tanner waits it out, and eventually, Chris nods minutely. “Maybe ten minutes.”

Tanner offers his hand for a fist bump, then leans on the wall to heave himself up. The act that was on before has swapped out for someone else, guitars a little softer, as they head back to the guys.

Tanner slides into the booth and says, “Mike, y’know, Chris has never seen pictures of Daniel,” and Mikey, who’s somehow come into possession of Andy’s cowboy hat, seizes the opportunity to take out his phone and start narrating the latest pictures of his kid the way he always does when he’s a few drinks in.

“-and, okay, Em says his eyes are hazel, but it’s like- I know what green is, I’m a goalie, I have good eyesight, and then I realize, my god, he’s three already and we don’t know what colour his eyes are-”

Chris looks at Tanner. Tanner nods, encouraging.

“They look green,” Chris says, and Mikey throws his hands up.

“That’s what I’m _saying_!”

They end up staying and looking at Mikey’s family photos for closer to twenty minutes. Chris actually looks like he’s having fun for once, relaxing by millimetres, so Tanner can beat himself up about putting him in this position in the first place later – for right now, he’ll call it a win.


	2. Chapter 2

Tanner’s never really put a ton of stock in bathroom floors at cowboy bars as a vehicle for team bonding, but that night apparently unlocks some secret door to Chris Chan deciding that Tanner’s his friend, or at the very least someone to trust.

It’s kind of a kick, realizing that the kid’s got a personality. Or, okay, Tanner suspected, of course he did, but suspecting is one thing and actually witnessing it is another. Makes drives to the rink a lot better, that’s for sure, now that Chris says stuff beyond niceties. Way beyond niceties, actually – he’s funny in this deadpan, sometimes unintentional way, making these dry little comments that Tanner never manages to expect, chirping him for his taste in radio stations and his lame tattoos and some play that he made the other night.

“Morning,” Tanner yawns, drumming his fingers on the wheel while Chris chucks his stuff into the backseat.

“Hi, Mack,” Chris says. “I had an idea for the penalty kill-”

Tanner’s never met anyone as hockey-obsessed as Chris. Never once in thirty-seven years. Tanner wonders at first if he should do something about it, if it’s a byproduct of the anxiety thing, Chris feeling like he’s got to be going twenty-four/seven, but he figures as the days go on that, nope, this is just what Chris genuinely enjoys. It’s good for both of them, probably, forces Tanner to up his game as well, ‘cause Chris is better already than Tanner was at his best, but he’s still always trying to learn more.

Their line is getting better every game, the two of them and Fish starting to get the hang of skating together, developing the kind of chemistry that only comes with knowing people better off the ice as well as on.

“Had to get that one for your boy, eh?” Fish teases Chris, fond, after Chris goes end-to-end for the OT winner, and Tanner shoves at Chris’ shoulder while Chris smiles all bashful at the little picture of his boyfriend he’s got taped up in his stall. It’s a mark of how obscenely fucking great he is that no one does more than mildly chirp him about it. Tanner’s fairly sure Iggy has made them all swear off anything that could throw Chris off his game.

Worse sources of motivation, far as Tanner’s concerned. He gets to chat with the boyfriend, Luka, the few times they all go out for dinner together, and finds him bossy and kind of high maintenance, for Tanner’s tastes, but he also transparently adores Chris, so Tanner can’t help but soften towards him at least a little. He and Chris are attached at the hip, this all-in puppy love that means that Tanner ends up knowing Luka’s class schedule just because that’s when he can expect Chris to show up at his apartment looking for company.

He’s no bother, as far as technically-uninvited houseguests go. No weird teenage shit, mostly just sitting in Tanner’s living room playing with Stacy, who’s about the size of one of his hands, and watching replays of games from around the league while Tanner does his thing.

“Want to learn how to make chicken?” Tanner offers, once, because he lived on Lindsey’s cooking for his first few seasons and takeout for maybe like eight subsequent ones before he got the hang of being a functional person.

“I cook for me and Luka, his dad taught me stuff,” Chris says, like _duh_. So much for paying it forward.

“Quit being more of a grown-up than me,” Tanner tells him, and Chris tilts his head.

“I technically am, if we’re-”

“We’re not going by height, you brat,” Tanner laughs, and Chris smiles like Tanner just gave him permission and comes to help make the chicken anyways.

And Tanner gives it to him a lot, right, because chirping is his default setting, but it’s also just- it’s nice, having someone around, especially someone easy to impress with old stories, because Tanner’s full of them. Nothing scandalous, nothing even all that exciting to anyone not already excited by hockey. Still enough to get Chris listening, rapt, anytime Tanner talks about his time in the league. Even asking questions, what it was like to play against this hall of famer or that one, what went into the win at his first Olympics.

He gets Tanner to sign a bunch of jerseys and stuff, a few weeks post-Nashville, instructing him to make them out to Meg. “You’re my best friend’s favourite player since she was five,” Chris says, which makes Tanner feel fucking ancient, thanks, but he just cracks some joke about Meg having good taste and signs whatever’s in front of him.

One day, when they’re flying back from Calgary, Chris comes and sits down in the seat next to Tanner on the plane, as Tanner’s opening up his chess app.

Tanner doesn’t bother asking why he’s not sitting with the young guys, just tilts the screen toward Chris, an offer. “You play?”

“My mom made me learn when I was little,” Chris says, which, yeah, that was kind of the vibe Tanner got from her in the two seconds they met. Then Chris gets nearly stern, the way he does sometimes. “Don’t make an Asian parents joke.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Tanner says, because he generally makes it a point not to be a complete racist asshole, which is what that would be. “You any good?”

“No,” Chris says, decisive, and that’s about it for conversation. He seems content enough to watch Tanner’s game before going back to reviewing tape on his phone, his notebook open on the fold-down table, and just like that, Tanner’s accidentally got himself a plane buddy, too.

“I can print you adoption papers, old man, if you need,” Iggy teases, when they’re out for lunch together in December. Tanner has to wrestle him into a headlock as a matter of honour, but he can’t argue, really, because it’s pretty apparent that Chris has decided to trust Tanner implicitly.

It makes sense, probably. Tanner’s the least intimidating option, as far as guys with letters on the Sharks go. And that’s nothing on Iggs, he’s a good captain, going to get better with experience, but he’s also twenty-four and always intense and Chris has more than enough of that on his own.

Tanner knows what this league can do to a kid, and Chris isn’t an idiot like Tanner was at his age, but he’s still a teenager, still all- he’s innocent, is the word that comes to mind; reminds Tanner of puppies not grown into their paws yet, following Tanner around like he’s someone worth following.

So the kid’s judgement is debatable. Still.

They round out the month four points out of a wild card spot with a game in hand. Not great, but nowhere near hopeless either. Tanner will take that, any day. Family skate goes how it usually does. Mandatory attendance, or Tanner wouldn’t bother. He makes do: Mike’s wife Emily is pregnant again, so Tanner hangs out with the two of them while Mike and the assistant coach Cole tell war stories from their time with the Islanders, and then Iggy shows up in his ludicrously expensive cashmere sweater to give Tanner shit for his hoodie and vest with a rip in the collar, which, whatever, it’s _warm_. Chris skates around with Luka. A bunch of the wives ask Tanner if he wants to be set up with their friends. The usual.

Tanner flies home, just for the couple of days they have for the holidays. He has his routine; goes with Aunt Claud to leave flowers for his mom, calls the family in Vancouver to say Merry Christmas. His dad asks how the house is holding up, the way he always does.

“Nice,” Tanner says. “Snowy. You could come up and visit.”

“Maybe next year,” his dad says, and that’s the way it always is, too.

Tanner doesn’t prolong the call – he asks if Katie liked her present, thanks Garret for sending the card, which Tanner leaves in the envelope and tosses right in the trash, because it’s always one of those cheesy family photo cards with him and Lindsey smiling on the front, and Tanner doesn’t need that in his life, thanks but no thanks.

He’s alone with the dogs once Jason heads home, so Tanner makes the rounds, puts out the special wet food and then gives them all scratches and some attention.

“People adopt more after the holidays,” he tells them, in case it’ll make them feel better. He gets a few tail wags in response.

He gets ready for bed quietly, lays out the sweater that Iggy got him – identical to the one Iggy owns, like passive-aggressively gifted matching clothes are the Russian version of best friends necklaces – for tomorrow morning before crawling under the covers and patting the space next to him. Stacy’s already curling up there.

“Merry Christmas, Stace,” he says, and she kisses his nose. He scratches her head, listens to her little snuffly breaths as she falls asleep.

The house is silent around him, nothing but the odd creaking noise as it settles.

Tanner sighs.

He’s not about to start feeling hard-done-by. It is what it is, and it’s been a lot worse than this.

\---

They go down three early, their first game of the new year. Tanner gets into it with his opposing winger at the start of the second to try and get the guys going, and it works, sort of, because they come back but drop the game in OT. Not the best way to start the year. Still about forty billion times better than they were doing this time last season. Coming back from three goals isn’t nothing.

Tanner gets his cheek looked at, waves off Dr. Sanchez when she offers painkillers, because that’s not a road that’s good for him to go down. He’s showered and dressed quicker than most of the guys after the game, and Chris’ mom is in town for the weekend, which means Tanner’s driving home alone, so he says his goodbyes and heads out.

He’s not really thinking anything in particular, walking through the hallways. Mostly just of getting home, ‘cause he’s got a bag of frozen peas in the freezer with his name on it. His face’s name on it? Whatever, he needs to ice his fucking face, it’s _sore._

He hears voices as he gets close to the stairs; recognizes Dr. Chan standing in the doorway of the room for players’ families, from when she was here at the start of the season. They didn’t really have any sort of conversation, nothing memorable except for the doctor thing, and Tanner would probably leave her alone except for that Andy’s talking to her, or talking at her, and she looks visibly uncomfortable, her back practically turned while Andy chatters away like she’s the latest girl he’s wheeling. And it’s like- Andy’s not a _bad_ guy, Tanner knows, but he also knows that it probably feels pretty different when you’re half a foot shorter than him and he’s blatantly flirting without taking a hint or ten, so Tanner sighs, gives up on icing his face in a timely manner, and veers over toward them.

He flings an arm around Andy’s shoulders, steering him away from Dr. Chan. “There you are, man, Coach wanted to see you.”

Andy blinks, guileless. “Oh, for real?”

Tanner nods, lies easily. “Yeah, he sounded kind of pissed, you should probably hurry.”

“Oh, shit, thanks.” Andy claps him on the back, tosses over his shoulder on his way back in, “Chat with you later, Joanne.”

“No thank you,” Chris’ mom says, real unimpressed, and Andy doesn’t even notice but it pretty much confirms that, yep, Tanner was right to be mildly scared of her.

The ensuing silence, once it’s just the two of them left, is awkward. That’s the weird thing about pro hockey not being grouped by age, is that Dr. Chan is Tanner’s teammate’s mom but she’s also pretty much the same age as him, which has the joint effects of making Tanner feel old as shit and also entirely unsure of what to say, like, ‘thank you for giving birth to the only reason we’re in playoff contention’.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Tanner says instead; then, when Dr. Chan looks at him, unsure, “His stupid? I don’t think it’s contagious, you’re probably fine.” He ventures a smile, even though it makes his stitched-up face sting. “Chris’ll be out in a minute.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Chan says. She’s got an accent, the softened kind that means she’s been here for years. “And for-” She gestures in the direction Andy left.

“Sorry about him,” Tanner says, and shoves his hands in his pockets, nods, polite. “You have a good night.”

“You too,” Dr. Chan says, polite as well, and Tanner turns to leave. And that’s it, probably the deepest conversation they’re ever going to have to have and all it’s ever going to be, only then what Andy said registers, belatedly, and Tanner turns right back around.

“Wait,” he says. “Your name’s Joanne?”

Dr. Chan raises an eyebrow. “…Yes?”

“Oh,” Tanner says, and it’s not like he’s really in a position to critique someone’s spelling, but he’s had her name on his contacts list for a few months now, and Joanne doesn’t have an X in it, or nearly that many vowels. “Did Chris put your name wrong in my phone, like, with an X, or…” Dr. Chan looks sort of taken aback, and Tanner bites his tongue. “You don’t have to answer that. Sorry.”

“He didn’t enter my name incorrectly,” Dr. Chan says. “Joanne is more convenient.”

“How’s that?”

She looks at him real blunt, like, _seriously?_ “Have you heard white people attempt to pronounce Xiaozhi?”

So that’s how it’s pronounced. Tanner laughs a little, surprised at her frankness. “It’s a cool name,” he says. “It mean anything?”

“Iris.” Dr. Chan still looks cagey. Tanner’s starting to think that might just be how she looks. “The flower.”

“Nice,” Tanner says, nodding a little lamely.

“Does… Tanner mean something?” Dr. Chan-slash-Joanne-slash-Xiaozhi asks, very clearly making an effort and not doing a great job at sounding anything but extremely skeptical, which is fair.

Tanner can’t not smile. “Tanner is a dog name.”

“I didn’t-”

“No, I mean my parents literally named me after the family dog,” Tanner lies, and Dr. Chan’s eyebrows fly up.

“Oh,” she says, and Tanner has to bite his lip to hide a smile. “Really?”

He only holds out a couple seconds. “Nah, not really,” Tanner admits. Drops the straight face. “But you totally believed me, which means I was right about it being a dog name.”

It’s like an optical illusion, gone as soon as it’s there, but Tanner’s pretty sure he got an almost-smile, with that one. Good. “It is,” Dr. Chan allows.

“Like a lab, y’know, one of the big golden ones?”

“That sheds.” She nods in Tanner’s direction, and it takes Tanner a second to realize he’s getting chirped.

“Okay, see, this look is totally intentional. Drives the ladies crazy.” He gives this exaggerated hair flip, even though his hair’s not _really_ long enough for it, and that’s enough to earn him another bemused look, like she doesn’t quite know how to react, and then they’re both spared from more Tanner jokes because Chris approaches, his backpack slung over his shoulders.

“Hi, mom,” he says; then, to Tanner, “Do you know why Andy’s looking for Coach?”

“No clue,” Tanner says, prompt. “You heading out?”

“We were going to get food,” Chris says. “Do you want to come with us?”

His mom turns real fast to look at him, visibly surprised. Not in an offensive way, because Tanner gets where she’s coming from, is pretty sure that Chris inviting people to family things isn’t a thing at all. It’s like- it’s genuinely touching, that Chris feels comfortable enough to ask to hang out with him even when he’s got other options. Means a lot.

Still. Family dinner is family dinner. Not Tanner’s thing to crash.

“Next time, kid, ‘kay? Gotta get home and let Stace out.” Tanner elbows Chris, fond, and addresses his mom, “Get him extra dessert, though, I’m serious, the way this guy played tonight.”

Chris looks real happy with himself, and like he’s trying not to be. “Thanks, Mack,” he says, and bumps Tanner’s fist when Tanner offers. “You ready, mom?”

She still looks a little taken aback, but after a moment, she nods and adjusts her purse on her shoulder. “Thank you again,” she says to Tanner.

“Bye,” Tanner says, then sort of trails off, because he’s not sure what he’s supposed to call her, Joanne or Xiaozhi or Dr. Chan.

“Bye,” she says, and doesn’t call him anything either, and Tanner figures that probably makes them even.

\---

Tanner ends the night with two assists, when they play in Vancouver. The reporters ask him what it’s like playing close to home, as if this city has anything to do with his home just by virtue of being in the same province. You could fit maybe a hundred of his hometown, here.

He showers after the game, takes a cab to the unfathomable depths of the suburbs and gets out in front of the huge, grey brick house.

The door is flung open before he even rings the bell.

“Uncle Tanner!” Tanner’s niece flies into his arms, throttling him with a hug.

Tanner pretends to stagger under the force of her, stumbling through the door. “Jesus god, Katie, what are you, six feet now?” he asks, and Kaitlyn laughs, proud. Garret shuts the door behind her, gives Tanner a nod and doesn’t bother trying to pry his daughter away.

“You guys painted?” Tanner asks, polite, while Kaitlyn climbs all over him like a jungle gym, which doesn’t feel great after three periods of hockey, but she’s only seven, light enough that he can take it. He toes his shoes off.

“Nice, right?” Garret taps the newly-beige wall as they head into the living room. Their dad’s on the couch, the end of the Jays game on the TV, but he cranes his neck to look at them when they head through the door.

“Bout time,” he says, good-natured, and Tanner waves a hand, this little half-salute.

“Hey, dad.”

Katie’s tugging on his pant leg, insistent. “Wanna come see my new lego I built for robotics club?”

“Uh, you know I want to see _all_ the lego,” Tanner says, and leaves Garret and his dad to watch the bottom of the eighth, lets himself get dragged down to the basement where all the toys are.

He’s grateful for the escape; doesn’t have to pretend to be enthusiastic, because honestly, it’s fucking cool lego, high tech shit that moves and lights up, not like the boring old bricks from when he was a kid, and Kaitlyn’s gushing the whole time about the cars and buildings and spaceships she’s making.

Katie’s too good for his family, probably. She’s sweet, even by little kid standards. Pretty much the main reason why things got better with Tanner and Garret and, Tanner suspects, why Garret started talking to their dad again.

“What does this one do?” Tanner asks, tapping one of the contraptions, and Katie’s eyes light up.

“It’s a submarine for finding mermaids!”

It always feels too soon, when Garret calls them up for dinner. Katie races Tanner up the stairs, and he trails behind her. Should’ve maybe tried a little harder in the race, because he gets to the main floor and nearly bumps right into Lindsey as she’s coming out of the kitchen balancing this massive salad bowl. It’s almost certainly full of weird, organic food blogger stuff. Too many ancient grains to really count as a salad, in Tanner’s opinion.

“Oh,” Lindsey says, with all the enthusiasm of someone heading in for a root canal. Possibly a summary execution. “Tanner, I didn’t get a chance to say hi.”

“Hi,” Tanner says, even though they both know she heard him arrive.

The silence is just fucking cavernous.

Tanner spares them both the attempt at further conversation. “I can bring that in.” He takes the salad bowl from her, and Lindsey steps aside to let him pass.

One interaction down, one dinner to go.

Tanner ends up sitting between Katie and his dad, his seat wedged in so his knee keeps knocking against the table leg. He smiles for a picture when Lindsey gets her camera out to capture the meal for the blog – NHLers are good for driving up traffic, who knew – and does bunny ears on Katie to make her laugh.

Rest of the meal goes same as it does every season. Tanner’s made something like seventy million dollars, being in the league full-time since he was eighteen, but he’s still the little brother, at this table. They ask him about hockey then mostly leave him to eat while they discuss politics and who got the new contract with the airfield and Dad’s golf buddies and other shit that’s mostly safe enough territory that Garret doesn’t get more than mildly passive aggressive. No one asks for Tanner’s opinion.

He was right about the ancient grains. This stuff is absolutely not a salad.

“Good dinner,” Tanner says, when enough time has passed that it’s not rude to make his escape. “Thanks, Lins.” The nickname slips out, automatic, and Tanner regrets it immediately after. It’s too familiar, too much an echo of what they don’t talk about. He sees Garret’s lips tighten, his arm do the same around Lindsey’s shoulders.

“Anytime,” is what Lindsey settles on, recovering smoothly with a big, gregarious smile that’s got nothing at all behind it.

“Perks of having a chef in the family, eh?” Tanner’s dad says; he’s oblivious, intentionally or not. He drags Tanner into a handshake, claps his shoulder. “Good game tonight, bud.”

“Thanks, dad,” Tanner says, then wheels around and scoops up Kaitlyn in one big motion; flips her upside-down so she screams with laughter and catches him in a hug when she’s the right way up.

“Bye Uncle Tanner, love you.”

Tanner squeezes her back, gentle. “You too, Katie-cat.”

“Score a goal next time, okay?”

“You got it,” Tanner promises, and taps her nose, fond, before handing her off to his dad.

Garret walks him out, stands with Tanner out front by the lawn while they wait for his cab. Weather’s nice, for this time of year.

“Katie’s getting tall, eh?” Tanner asks, for something to say.

“Tell me about it,” Garret agrees. “No idea where the time goes.”

“I can tell,” Tanner quips. “Little grey there?”

Garret rolls his eyes, but smiles, a little. They both know Tanner got the looks and Garret got the brains; have been retreading the same jokes about it most of their adult lives. They’ve got safe territory pretty thoroughly mapped, by now.

“Dad’s good?” Tanner asks, now that it’s just them.

Garret shrugs a shoulder. “You know how he is.” It’s not exactly warm. Garret fakes it okay, helped get dad set up nice in his retirement community, but he doesn’t have a ton of patience with him.

“He said a while ago he might come visit home,” Tanner says. “Maybe once the season’s done, you guys could all-”

“Tanner,” Garret cuts him off, weary, and Tanner trails off into nothing.

Neither of them, Garret or his dad, makes any secret of avoiding home. It’s like the house is cursed, makes Tanner feel sometimes like he’s the only one guarding some archaeological site, the only one trying to dig things up, like here’s where things were good, here’s where we were the last time we all talked and it didn’t feel like shouting across a canyon.

“You ever going to get out of that place?” Garret asks.

Tanner scuffs his toe on the pavement. Watches a pebble go skittering away. “Can’t see why I’d want to.”

“The rest of the year you live in _San Jose_ ,” Garret says. “I get wanting to get back to Canada, but any growth in the province is down here.”

He doesn’t get it. Nothing new. “I know.”

Garret quits beating around the bush, gets to where the conversation was always going to go. “Still not drinking?”

Tanner raises his eyebrows, shoots Garret a look. Subtlety: not the Mackenzies’ forte. “Seriously?”

Garret puts his hands up, like ‘sue me’. “I’m only asking ‘cause Aunt Claud’ll kill me if I don’t, you know it’s true.” He’s got this look on his face like he knows he’s being a dick, all teasing, and Tanner can’t help but match it.

“Yeah, right, it’s all Claudia.”

“It is!” Garret says, laughing a little. “You’re her favourite, she’d murder me if I didn’t check on you!”

“You know you still can’t lie for shit, Garret, right?” Tanner asks, and he’s joking around, smiling big so he can feel it in his cheeks, but the joke lands badly; takes the almost-normal moment, the kind of moment where Garret’s just Tanner’s brother, and crumples it up into nothing, because they both know from experience that Garret can lie pretty fucking well, if he tries hard enough.

It’s awkward. Has been ever since, even though Tanner tries to forgive and forget, god grant him the serenity, that whole thing. Doesn’t know whose fault it is that it hasn’t quite worked.

“Sorry,” Tanner says, too late.

Garret’s looking at the road, not at Tanner. His face is impassive. Tanner wonders if Lindsey’s watching them from inside. Doesn’t turn to check.

The car pulls up to the curb, lights bright in the dark.

“Sorry,” Tanner mumbles again, and Garret does this little exhale, somewhere between resigned and irritated, almost schooling himself.

“It’s good to see you doing well, kid,” is all he finally says, and Tanner waits, but nothing else comes, so he goes.

It is what it is. Garret is what he is, responsible big brother with a real job and a wife and a kid too young for him and a brother who doesn’t know when to cut his losses, ‘cause yeah, Tanner tries, but he is what he is too.

\---

The season rolls on. Tanner plays chess, plays only slightly less hockey. Chris is singlehandedly keeping them in the wildcard spot, but Tanner figures he’s not in a position to be picky. They all want playoff hockey – the young guys, slowly but surely getting the hang of the league, Mikey getting into a groove in the crease, Iggy practically jumping up and down at the idea of winning something.

They fly across the country to play the Isles, then the Rangers. The crowd at the Garden still gives Tanner a cursory cheer first time he hits the ice, ‘cause winning a cup in a place tends to endear you to them. A couple of the Rangers, the guys who were around when Tanner was, tap his stick and say hi, chirping before the puck is dropped.

Tanner doesn’t stick around after the game. Doesn’t head out with most of the guys either, just walks toward the bus back to the hotel.

Iggy jogs to catch up to him. “You are not going out with the boys? New York friends?”

“And leave you to navigate the city alone?” Tanner deflects, flinging an arm around Iggy’s shoulders. “O captain my captain, I would never.”

Iggy rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t push. Maybe doesn’t even realize there _is_ anything to push: he’s only ever known Tanner sober and single, and Tanner feels bad sometimes, about losing touch with his old teammates, about letting guys like Iggy think that the way he is now is the way he’s always been, but it’s just- easier, that way. Especially here. Someone asked him about Lindsey, last season. He can’t do that whole thing again.

“You’re antisocial, old man,” Iggy says, but he doesn’t go out with the guys either, just heads back to the hotel and watches the late game with Tanner and Chris, so they’re all antisocial together.

Tanner makes it through. Doesn’t breathe right ‘til he’s on the plane and in the air, but he makes it through, and that’s New York done for another year.

They beat the Ducks at home, then the Kings. Lose out the Central roadie, which pretty much tanks their playoff chances, not that Tanner’s going to be saying that to the guys. It’s a young team, they need something to fight for. Tanner doesn’t mind hoping for a miracle.

He mostly thought that the dinner invite was a one time thing, but as the weeks go on, Chris keeps asking, so the last week of the season, three games left, Tanner ends up getting Indian with both Chans and Chris’ boyfriend.

It goes better than Tanner was expecting it to, honestly. Chris’ mom just flew in with her semester done, and she’s still not much of a talker and Tanner’s real aware that he’s the odd one out here in terms of shared history, but between the four of them, the conversation keeps moving.

Once they’re done eating, Tanner gets up to find the waiter and take care of the bill without making a big thing of it, but Chris stops him.

“You don’t have to,” he says. Tanner remembers being him, the weirdness of realizing he could cover every bill for the rest of time and not make a dent in his bank account.

“Trust me, kid, when you sign your next contract, you’re buying me dinner for the rest of your life,” Tanner fends him off, and messes up Chris’ hair, fond, before wandering toward their waiter.

“You have a lovely family,” the host tells him once he’s there, which very much does make Tanner re-evaluate some things about his mortality, thanks, even though he’s pretty sure he doesn’t look old enough to have two nineteen year-old sons, and that he’s far too blonde to reasonably have these two nineteen year-old sons in particular, at least biologically. He debates clarifying, but the receipt prints, and he decides it’s not worth the effort.

“Uh, thanks,” is all he says, feeling only a little guilty about it, and heads back to the table.

No one tries any other uncomfortably family-related compliments as they leave, thank god. Chris gets an arm around Luka’s shoulders once they’re out the door, and it’s a very in their own world, young love sort of thing, so Tanner leaves them to it and ends up following a few feet back, in step with Chris’ mom.

“Luka’s a character, eh?” he says, conversational.

“He’s good for Christopher,” Dr. Chan says. “His family used to watch him for me when I was working shifts.”

Tanner thinks he gets what she means – it changes Chris’ whole demeanor, when he’s around Luka, gives him this confidence that he usually only has with the puck on his stick. It’s good to see.

“Chris is happy here?” Dr. Chan asks, then, sort of out of nowhere. She’s looking intently at Tanner. “With the team?”

“I- yeah, I think so,” Tanner says, a little taken aback by the question. “It’s a good group of guys in the room.”

Dr. Chan doesn’t really react, just does this little nod, dismissive, like that’s besides the point. “He gets nervous,” she says, as if Tanner hasn’t realized that.

“I know,” Tanner says; then, because he feels like she was skeptical of his answer or his ability to look out for Chris or just him in general, “I usually just bring him over to sit with me and the rest of the old guys. Hard to be nervous when our goalie’s going through an entire album of baby pictures.”

And that seems to be a satisfactory enough answer to whatever concerns Dr. Chan was having, because she relaxes, just a bit – it’s nice, makes her slightly less terrifyingly serious – but before Tanner can say anything else, Chris jogs toward them.

“Hi,” he says. “Luka just got a text, there’s some poetry thing he wants to see so I’m going to go with him for that, if that’s okay?”

“Don’t stay out too late,” Dr. Chan says, then adds on something presumably in Mandarin, and Chris nods.

“I know, mom,” he says, then turns to Tanner, and Tanner holds his hand out for a fist bump, automatic.

“Leaving for the rink at ten tomorrow,” he says, like the kid has ever once needed a reminder.

“I know,” Chris repeats, and taps his knuckles to Tanner’s, gives his mom one more quick smile before jogging over to rejoin Luka and disappear around the corner, which means that Tanner’s left to walk home with his teammate’s mom, which. Sure.

“You guys speak Chinese at home?” he asks, after a momentary lull. It’ll only be weird if he lets it be, he reasons.

“I do,” Dr. Chan says. “He understands a little.”

“That’s cool,” Tanner says, then throws in, jokingly, “I mean, I can barely manage English.”

She doesn’t even react. It’s apparently an inherited trait, not being amused by his humour. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

It’s not the worst walk of Tanner’s life. Just a couple of blocks, and he does most of the talking, ‘cause Dr. Chan is pretty quiet. Not in a shy way like Chris, more- reserved. It’s fair, probably: they’ve had a grand total of two conversations, but Tanner kind of knows her anyways from what Chris has said, and he’s willing to bet that Chris has talked about him as well. That’s a weird space to be in with someone, socially speaking.

“Chris said you play chess, right?” he asks, remembering that time on the plane as they round the corner to his street.

“Yes,” Dr. Chan looks at him, maybe more interested than before. “Do you?”

Tanner shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, y’know, not against actual humans, but. Yeah.”

“No chess club?”

“High school me was _way_ too cool to be in chess club,” Tanner says. Maybe brags, a little.

Dr. Chan shoots him this look, wry.

Tanner winces. “….You were in chess club, huh?”

“I was on the chess _team_ ,” she corrects, and Tanner’s for-real embarrassed now – you just called her uncool to her face, nice one, Mackenzie – but Dr. Chan doesn’t sound annoyed. It occurs to him, slow and strange and mildly unbelievable, that she’s _teasing_ him.

Huh. Chan family, still waters.

“Shit, alright,” Tanner says, unable to hold back a grin. “The chess _team_.”

He nods at Ken the doorman when he lets them in the building. The lobby’s quiet, not a busy night for Ken, it doesn’t look like, so Tanner does the whole ‘hi how are you’ thing with him while he waits for the elevator. It takes him a few moments to realize that Dr. Chan is digging in her purse, frowning slightly.

“You okay?” Tanner asks, and she sighs.

“I didn’t get the key from Chris.” She sounds annoyed with herself for forgetting, and the elevator dings as the doors slide open, and it’s not like Tanner can just _leave_ her.

“I have a chess set,” he says. “You want to come up and play while you wait?” He just sort of- asks, doesn’t really think about it at first. Then, because he’s, like, ostensibly a grown man and not a kid on the playground and inviting women to your apartment has implications even if they’re your friend’s mother, “You don’t have to, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Dr. Chan agrees, then hesitates. “I’ve only played online, recently.”

“Scared I’ll win, chess team?” is what comes out of Tanner’s mouth, entirely without his permission, because he’s a knucklehead who apparently doesn’t know how to switch his conversational repertoire from ‘room full of sweaty jocks’ to ‘smallish professor in a literal cardigan’.

Said professor doesn’t appear to take offense, because she ends up getting out of the elevator on Tanner’s floor, trailing him down the hall.

“It’s not that clean,” Tanner warns, once he’s unlocking his front door. His place isn’t that messy, either, just kind of there. He doesn’t usually entertain a lot, other than Chris and sometimes Iggy.

Stacy comes right to the door to greet them, wagging her tail and hopping around like she’s a puppy again. Tanner goes to catch her, to apologize for her jumping, only-

“Hi, doggy!” Dr. Chan says. “Hello, you are so small, look at you!” It’s the most expression Tanner’s heard in her voice, higher pitch than normal too, and as he watches, she kneels right down in the front hall so Stacy can leap into her lap and give her kisses. “Hello!”

“…Oh my _god_ ,” Tanner says, mostly without meaning to.

Dr. Chan looks up at him, scratching Stacy behind the ears. “What?”

“You have a dog voice.” He can’t stop smiling, gleeful. He wouldn’t have picked her for a dog person, has kind of been assuming that she’s the reason Chris didn’t have a dog growing up.

“Excuse me?”

“You just did a baby voice to talk to my dog.”

Dr. Chan scoffs, all affronted, like she’s not actively on the floor cuddling said dog. “I did not.”

“You totally did and it was adorable,” Tanner retorts, frank.

“It was not and I didn’t,” Dr. Chan says, real stern, and it’s no wonder Chris has such good manners, if that was the voice telling him to say please and thank you. “I don’t _baby talk_.” She says it like the mere suggestion is the most ludicrous thing she’s ever heard.

“Fine,” Tanner says, undeterred.

“Fine.”

“Talk to her again, then,” he dares.

“I will,” Dr. Chan says. “In a normal voice.”

“Go nuts,” Tanner says, gestures like ‘be my guest’, and he watches her visibly struggle to muster up the ability to talk to a six pound piece of fluff like it’s a person.

He tries not to laugh. He really does. It just doesn’t work.

“You are very annoying,” Dr. Chan informs him, a little like she doesn’t quite know how to react to him. She’s back to cooing at Stacy a second later, though, so Tanner doesn’t take it too personal.

He asks if she wants water or coffee or something, but she declines, so he just grabs his chess set off the shelf and sets it down on the coffee table. The set is one of the few nice things he’s actually splurged on; doesn’t get much use compared to his app, which is a shame.

Tanner sort of wonders what Stacy will do if Dr. Chan tries to sit in her spot on the couch, but it doesn’t end up mattering: they sit on the living room carpet, on opposite sides of the table. Dr. Chan’s got Stacy in her lap.

“Colour preference?” Tanner asks, and Dr. Chan shakes her head no, so he gives her white, lets her make the first move.

Tanner kind of- it sounds bad to say he goes easy, but he’s actively trying to not be a complete dick, if she hasn’t played in a while, only it turns out to be a moot point, because even once he belatedly starts trying full-out to win, she _demolishes_ him.

“What the fuck?” Tanner asks, when she takes his king with absolutely ruthless efficiency, and then he catches himself, still in total disbelief. “Sorry for swearing, just- what the hell?”

Dr. Chan shrugs. “It was a nationally ranked chess team,” she says, all innocent. Kind of smug, too.

Tanner takes back every apologetic thought he had about chirping her too hard.

“Rematch,” he says, firm, reaching across the board to gather up his pieces. Dr. Chan raises an eyebrow.

“You want to lose again?”

“I was going easy,” Tanner lies, but he’s smiling when he does it, because talking shit’s more fun if the other person can give it back. He didn’t expect that from her, either. “For your information.”

Dr. Chan definitely knows he’s lying, and she doesn’t miss a beat. “It was very easy, yes.”

The good thing about her apparently being the same level of overly competitive asshole as Tanner is that any lingering weirdness vanishes pretty much instantly once they’re trying to destroy each other. Chess feels like hockey, for a while, acting and reacting in the same muscle-memory sort of way, and she’s better than him, that much is pretty evident, but Tanner’s also had a decade’s worth of multiple games a day on plane and bus rides, so he fucking _tries_ , keeps pace and waits for her to fuck up, and when she does, he jumps on it.

“Boom,” he says, finally, a little out of breath for no good reason at all. “Checkmate.”

It feels like an important win. Put them on even footing, Tanner thinks, and there’s something else in Dr. Chan’s eyes when she meets his, this time. Surprise, Tanner thinks. Good.

“Two out of three,” is all she says, and Tanner grins, and then they both jump when Dr. Chan’s phone buzzes with a text.

It’s dark outside, when Tanner glances out the window for the first time in ages.

“Chris got home?” he asks when Dr. Chan starts getting up, and shouldn’t feel disappointed when she nods. Does, anyways.

He walks her to the door, stands there while she slides her shoes on.

“I’m sorry for staying late,” she says.

“I wasn’t going to be doing anything anyways,” Tanner says, and then Dr. Chan – it feels weird, calling her Dr. Chan now – presses her lips together and he sighs. “Interpret that in the least pathetic way possible, please.”

Tanner gets the distinct feeling that she’s laughing at him. Not in a bad way. “Bye,” she says.

“Bye,” he echoes, and waves at her as she gets into the elevator. When he gets back into the living room, Stacy is sniffing at the chess board, but she pauses and stares at him, all judgey.

“What, Stace?” Tanner asks her. Stacy does not respond, predictably.

It was a good night. One for two – not too bad.

\---

It goes down to the wire, at least.

Tanner can’t decide if that should make him feel better or worse, how close they get, when they win out their last two games that weekend. So do the other teams in their division.

They miss the playoffs by one point.

Iggy breaks his stick as they’re heading down the tunnel. It makes a couple of the young guys jump, startled, but most of them just keep shuffling forward, slumped shoulders.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Iggy growls. “Fucking _again_ ,” and then a stream of what Tanner feels pretty safe assuming is more profanity in Russian.

Tanner stops him, a hand on his chest, before they walk into the room, because the last thing the boys need is their captain spitting mad, not on a night like this. “Don’t make it worse for them than it is,” he warns, not-unkindly. Iggy glowers at him and shoves him off, stomping into the room, but he doesn’t break anything else, simmering instead of boiling over, and Tanner sees him checking in with some of the guys who look particularly crushed, so- good. That’s them taken care of, at least for now.

Chris is so, so quiet, the whole drive home. Like back at the beginning of the year, before he’d talk to Tanner.

“Luka and your mom are waiting for you at your place?” Tanner confirms, only breaking the silence once they’re parked, and Chris nods wordlessly. Tanner wants to hug him or something, knows it won’t help. It’s not something you grow out of, that disappointment of knowing you’re going to have to watch someone else lift the cup. “You okay?”

Chris nods again, doesn’t look at Tanner as he opens his door and grabs his things from the backseat.

Tanner gives him space, the next few days. Chris has his family, Tanner figures, and he doesn’t need Tanner butting in on him feeling feelings. Instead, Tanner checks on Iggy. Eats a whole lot of pizza. Walks in the park with Stacy, and if anyone recognizes him, they leave him alone.

The day of locker room clean out, Chris is still quiet on the drive in, still dead-serious like the news that they lost is still hitting him. Tanner gets his wrap-up interview out of the way early enough, dutifully answers all the questions about encouraging progress and hopes for next year. He lingers in the room even after he’s done with the media, same as most of the guys – letting go for the summer, knowing not everyone’ll be back come September, is never easy.

“He’s seriously not here?”

Tanner knows without hearing the rest of the conversation who the media crew is talking about; sure enough, he peers around the room. No Chris.

“Has anyone seen our leading scorer?” Sam from PR asks, all exasperated, and just about every guy on the team looks at Tanner. Tanner looks at Chris’ stall, does a quick tally of what’s missing.

“Give me a sec?” Tanner says, and Sam nods, impatient, as Tanner veers for Chris’ stall, grabs what he needs, and heads out.

It’s what he expects: he checks each of the practice pads, finds Chris at the second. His back is to Tanner, but there’s no mistaking him as he sits there by the boards, taping his stick.

Tanner lets the door shut heavily behind him so Chris will know he’s there; then, when Chris doesn’t turn around, comes and sits down on the bench next to him.

Tanner gives Chris a quick once-over, making sure it’s not an anxiety thing again. His first impression is that it’s not – Chris isn’t shaking, isn’t all curled up like he’s trying to hide. He’s just wrapping the blade of his stick, more meticulous even than usual. He looks real serious. That face he gets sometimes, older than his age, like he’s thinking through every problem in the world.

Tanner waits for him to be ready to talk.

“I’ve never lost this early,” is what Chris says, eventually, once he’s done taping his stick.

“You don’t get to beat yourself up about this one,” Tanner says. “It’s the NHL. You played good, team’s still young. We’ll get there next year. Promise.”

“You can’t promise that,” Chris says, still not looking at Tanner.

“Just did anyways,” Tanner says. “Want hockey advice?”

Chris doesn’t miss a beat. “Yes.”

“Doesn’t do anyone any good for you to think about stuff that went wrong sitting here. Not in the room with the press, either. Think about it on the ice. Leave it where it’s useful.”

Chris finally looks over at Tanner, and he looks utterly lost. “I should have made us win, Mack.”

Tanner shakes his head, talking nearly before Chris is done. “It’s not just on you.”

“You don’t get it,” Chris says.

“You sure about that one, kid?” Tanner asks, and Chris looks suitably abashed, because yeah, Tanner’s no first overall, but he was a high pick on a shitty team with a lot of expectations square on his shoulders. He’s been getting it for damn near twenty years in this league, or close enough. Certainly enough to know how it feels when you’re young and everything that happens in the NHL is the biggest thing in the world.

Chris breathes out, shaky. “It’s hockey,” he says, clearly trying to keep it together. Not succeeding, not entirely. “Hockey _is_ on me, it’s-” His voice breaks, and he goes back to fiddling with the tape on his stick. Hiding again.

“It’s not everything,” Tanner says. He holds out the picture of Luka he took from Chris’ stall, waits for Chris to take it. He’s real gentle, the way he holds it. “You got people who love you, you got time. Hockey doesn’t have to be everything. Trust me.”

Chris looks down at the picture for a long time, then, finally, nods.

“Beauty,” Tanner says. He punches Chris’ arm, fond. “Awful fucking tape job, though, big guy, and I mean that, sincerely.”

He doesn’t, really, but Chris fixes him with a look anyways, tucking Luka’s photo carefully into his pocket. “You’re trying to distract me again,” Chris says.

“It working?” Tanner asks, shameless.

“No,” Chris grumbles, and the old man look is gone, he looks every inch the sulky teenager he never really is. He gets up, though, and lets Tanner herd him back toward the locker room, shoving each other around and even almost cracking a smile, so yeah, it’s working.

Tanner’s fucking proud of him. For the brave face he puts on in his interview, sure, but even in general – first year in the league, the kind of stakes people put on a first overall pick, it was sink or swim, and there’s a Sharks joke there somewhere but Chris managed not to go under, and when Tanner compares it to his own rookie season, or the parts he can remember, he thinks, yeah, the kid’ll be okay.

“One last country song for the road?” Tanner asks, once they’re in the car.

“I thought you were trying to make me feel better,” Chris says, really dry, but he doesn’t look miserable, not even a little, when Tanner blasts the music and screech-sings along to it, worse than usual on purpose so Chris’ll laugh.

He trails Chris to his apartment once they’re back home, instead of heading right up to his own place. Doesn’t linger for long, just enough to watch Chris smile at his mom, walk in and tug Luka into a hug, curling around him on the couch.

Their relief is palpable, same as Tanner’s. Dr. Chan’s got this look on her face, content as she looks at her son, and Tanner doesn’t mean to disturb her, but she walks with him to the door anyways.

“Have a good summer, okay?” he tells her. “Chris too.”

“We will,” she says, then, as Tanner’s halfway into the hall, “Tanner” and Tanner turns to look. She stays standing where she is, one hand on the doorframe, as she meets his gaze. “Thank you.”

She means for Chris, Tanner realizes, for getting him smiling, and it catches him off-guard a bit, the sincerity of her voice. It’s this weird moment of- of mutual awareness, almost, the kind that comes from realizing that the same person is important to them both, that neither of them is the only one trying to look out for Chris Chan.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tanner says, recovering fast. Then, because they’re leaving for the summer, he thinks, _fuck it,_ and asks, “Can I- do you want Xiaozhi or Joanne, when I’m talking to you? Or Dr. Chan, I can-”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. Maybe like a reflex.

“See,” Tanner says, because names do matter, he’s pretty sure, “you’re not allowed to be polite now, not after stealing my dog’s affection and crushing my ego the other night, chess team.”

Dr. Chan kind of rolls her eyes. It’s not as biting as he thinks she means it to be. “Do you nickname everybody you meet?”

“Nah, just the ones I like,” Tanner says, easy. He’s good at being a goof. Pretty good at getting the Chan family out of their shells, too.

She looks at him for a long moment. “Xiaozhi,” she says, finally. “I prefer Xiaozhi, only if you say it correctly.”

“Okay, then,” Tanner says, and he holds out his hand. “Bye, Xiaozhi.”

“Bye, Tanner.” She shakes his hand, and it’s sort of formal, but sort of friendly too, Tanner thinks.

End of the season goes fast, after that, the way it usually does. The team goes its separate ways without a ton of ceremony; none of them are from here and most of them will be back next season, barring trades. Tanner goes for lunch with Iggy the day before he leaves, and that goes about how he expected it to, with Iggy telling him to come visit Russia, Tanner begging off – he can’t leave the dogs, and then there’s training, c’mon, Iggs – and Iggy bitching about Tanner’s cargo shorts for the rest of the meal until hugging him real tight when it’s time to leave.

Tanner doesn’t have much stuff to bring back to BC, just clothes he shoves in a bag, toiletries and whatever. Stacy’s favourite blanket. She naps in her carrier at his feet once they’re at the airport, and a couple people ask Tanner for pictures, but most of the wait for the flight is peaceful enough. He kills time doing a crossword in a left-behind newspaper, then plays peekaboo with a baby sitting a few rows away, and then opens up his chess app to see if he can fit in a match before takeoff.

His eyes land on the little bubble on the main screen, the one he usually ignores, that says ‘Challenge your friends’. Tanner doesn’t know what makes him do it, but he taps it, scrolls down the pop-up list of his contacts. Only one of them has the app, and it’s exactly who he figured it’d be.

He hesitates, but only for a second, then presses Xiaozhi Chan. _In case you want to lose more :)_ , he sends along with the invite, right before they start calling people to board the flight.

Xiaozhi doesn’t respond to it, not exactly, but she accepts his invitation, and when Tanner steps off the plane back in BC, there’s a notification waiting, letting him know that he’s been invited to start a match.


	3. Chapter 3

Summer stretches out, days stacked on end as far as Tanner can see.

It is what it is, and what it is is Tanner familiarizing himself with the couple of new dogs that’ve arrived since he was last here, taking over the day-to-day stuff from Jason. One of the new dogs – his owner died, one of the old couple that owned the only store in town – has got asthma, so Tanner spends a few days reading up on that. He sits out in the yard with Stacy. Skypes with Katie and Garret, once. Mostly Katie. Garret sticks around for maybe ten minutes before getting a different call and heading off to take that. It’s fine by Tanner – he tours around the house, shows Katie all the fosters and makes them wave their paws at her ‘til she’s laughing.

“Know what, Uncle Tanner?” she asks, once Lindsey appears in the background to tell her to get off the phone and get ready for camp. She doesn’t say hi to Tanner. Tanner didn’t really expect her to.

“What?” he asks, cross-legged next to one of the dog beds.

Kaitlyn lowers her voice, all secretive, ducking in close to the camera like it’ll make a difference. “You’re _so_ lucky you just live with dogs instead of people.”

It takes Tanner a second. He musters up a laugh. “You know it, Katie-cat,” he says. Not equipped to deal with eight-year-old level honesty, that’s all.

He goes to bed that night, tosses and turns in the quiet. It’s only barely June.

He keeps busy, or tries to. Cleans out all the gutters and spends a long weekend going around fixing all the shutters. He follows the playoffs at least a little. Follows the awards a little more, only to watch Chris win the Calder in the least surprising turn of events ever to take place.

 _FUCKIN EH_ , he texts Chris, and gets back a row of smiley faces. They text back and forth a bit, on and off as the weeks pass, Chris watching back video from the season and suggesting that Tanner look into changing the curve on his stick, Tanner needling at Chris to lighten up. Iggy texts too, sending Tanner screenshots of his selfies because Tanner doesn’t have whatever social media app everyone’s using lately.

A notification pops up on his phone, the familiar sound, and Tanner reaches for it straight away, navigates to the chess game in progress. He grins at his screen. Xiaozhi just made her latest move – he’s won the last two, snapping a five game losing streak. The current game’s been progressing incrementally for maybe a day and a half.

“She’s going to do the thing she does,” Tanner tells Stacy, once he’s made his move. “She goes really aggressive if she thinks she’s about to lose again, watch.”

Stacy ignores him and keeps chewing on the corner of a pillow. Tanner can’t hold it against her – it says something probably unflattering about him that the highlight of his summer is playing enough virtual chess against his teammate’s mother to memorize her strategies.

It is, though. The highlight.

It doesn’t make sense, really. Tanner- this is home, this is what he looks forward to all year, being here, and now he’s here and he’s wandering around the house and everything’s the way it’s supposed to be, dogs happy and safely retired, plenty of time to go for runs and work on some weights with no one to bother him.

July. Only just July.

He doesn’t recall summers stretching out quite _this_ far.

Tanner is bored _._ He shouldn’t be wanting for stuff to do, because there’s always stuff to do with a place this size, but more often than not, he finds himself looking for ways to fill up the days. That doesn’t usually happen, certainly not this early in the offseason.

He trails Jason around when he comes to drop off a new shipment of food, heads out and enjoys the work of unloading the truck. Mostly the company.

“Can I do something?” Tanner asks, once they’re done. “Like, admin-wise, paperwork, or-”

“There’s nothing to really paperwork about,” Jason says, easy, setting down the last box. “I already ordered more of the diabetic canned food for Marnie, that’ll come in soon.”

Just Tanner’s luck, to hire the most efficient person in all of Northern Canada to run his shit.

“Great,” he says. “Great, thanks, man.” And then Jason’s heading back to the truck, and then he’s gone too.

Tanner quits pretending like he’s not counting down the days before heading back to San Jose. It must be a hockey thing, he reasons, the way the season ended like unfinished business. Eagerness to get back in the saddle.

“See, it’s not your fault,” he tells the dogs, so they won’t feel bad, as the calendar is crawling towards August. “I like hanging out with you guys, honest.”

He loses at chess, wins the rematch right after. Works out more. Still talks too much to the dogs, probably, but if he didn’t there’d be days where he didn’t say anything at all, so he keeps it up.

“Is it quieter than usual around here?” Tanner asks, when Aunt Claudia drives up the vetmobile to do her usual checkups.

“Same as always,” Claudia shrugs. Which-

Yeah. Yeah, it usually is.

\---

New season, new Tanner, is Tanner’s logic when he forgoes the kitchen scissors and actually goes to a barber to get a haircut. It makes him look older, or maybe just look his age. In a mostly good way, he thinks? Less like a beach hobo, in any case.

“You look like a _grown up_ ,” Chris says, frowning and also confirming Tanner’s theory the second he opens the door to his place. Back in the city for half a day and already back to sass. Tanner missed him.

“Wow, hello to you too,” Tanner grins. He holds out his hand for a fist bump, but Chris hugs him instead. Tanner freezes for a second – hugs outside the rink aren’t really a thing, for him, or haven’t been in ages – before hugging Chris back.

“Hey, bud,” Tanner laughs, touched, patting Chris’ back; then, dragging Chris down to mess up his hair, “Fuckin’ Calder winner right here, I’m not even going to ask how your summer was.”

“Better with no one tall enough to try and wrestle me,” Chris says swatting mostly ineffectually at Tanner. Tanner makes a mental note to teach him how to grapple better – seriously, the size of him, it’s embarrassing he’s this bad – and they’re both laughing, pushing each other around as they make their way into the place, and they nearly barrel straight into Xiaozhi as she rounds the corner from the living room. Tanner lets go of Chris automatically; runs a hand through his hair, just habit, ‘cause he’s still not used to it being short, is all.

“Oh,” he says. “Hi.”

“Hello.” Summer looks nice on Xiaozhi, like, objectively, a slight tan and her hair still tied back off her face. Tanner kind of forgot what she looked like, texting and playing chess all summer. He was excited to see her again. Maybe didn’t realize that ‘til right now.

“Good summer?” he asks, friendly.

“Teaching,” Xiaozhi says. “No real professors want to do summer school. You?”

“A one-eyed and three-legged husky peed on me,” Tanner bitches good-naturedly. “So, like, the usual.”

Xiaozhi’s eyes crinkle at that, her standard almost-smile, and Tanner thinks for a second that he might get a real one, but then Chris is talking, asking him about training, and he switches his attention to that.

It’s a real nice evening. Tanner brings Stacy and his chess set down, catches up with Chris while he and Xiaozhi play. She’s leaving for work again tomorrow, but Tanner doesn’t have a chance to be disappointed. Chris and Luka are talkative as ever, catching Tanner up on a summer’s worth of excitement, which, as far as he can tell, mostly involved Luka napping on a variety of beaches and Chris watching him adoringly, so at least they haven’t changed.

Xiaozhi roasts him again, all deadpan, when she beats him – it’s a close game, Tanner will take it – and then kicks his butt again later that night, when Tanner’s lying in bed and they’re continuing their old match on the app, the way they’ve been doing all summer. It’s kind of nice, playing each other from two floors apart instead of four provinces.

 _Off night for me eh_ , he sends, and she sends _Off summer_ , and Tanner grins. His phone’s been going all night, the boys in the group chat planning the barbeque, Iggy spamming Tanner with dozens of texts and no-eyes smiley faces to pick him up at the airport tomorrow. He’s got Stacy curled up next to him, his rookie waiting to head to the rink tomorrow and hit the ice, and it’s as good as Tanner’s felt in months, not like being back home, because he spent all summer there, but-

Something like it, he thinks. Still quiet, still him in an empty room, but less lonely, somehow.

\---

The team’s better than last year, that much is immediately evident. Tanner’s been around hockey just about his entire life, plenty long enough to know the feeling that comes when a team is hungry, and this team, right from the first day of camp, is.

The last Friday before their home opener, Tanner sits through his meeting with the rest of the leadership – he’s still the only assistant – before changing into non-workout clothes for the team barbeque at Fish’s place. It’s loud, high fives and hugs and almost-certainly-exaggerated retellings of summer exploits as everyone settles into being around each other again. Chris puts up with the ribbing about the Calder, even looks pleased when it shifts towards actual congratulations.

There’s a giant cooler of beers, condensation dripping down the sides, and it’s, like, looming, so Tanner mainly stays over by the grill on the other side of the yard, being sous-chef for Mike, who’s pulled the dad card and commandeered barbequing rights. Mikey deigns to let Tanner do the veggie skewers, and he’s backseat grilling the whole time, but the guy’s got a three-week old baby at home, so Tanner cuts him some slack.

“I almost fainted again,” Mikey confides, watching Tanner turn the skewers. “Like, we did it before with Daniel, you think you’ve seen a human come out of another human once, you’d get used to it, but-”

“You’d think, huh?” Tanner heads Mikey off at the pass before he can actually describe his wife giving birth, because he loves his goalie, but boundaries exist for a reason.

“Kids, man,” Mikey says, oblivious, and he’s kind of moon-eyed, this time, so Tanner, once again, cuts him slack.

 _Do profs have work parties_ , he texts later, on a whim, once he’s in bed and he and Xiaozhi are wrapping up their game.

 _Wine and cheese nights_ , she replies.

_Snobby_

_Extremely._

Tanner loses. He doesn’t mind.

They’ve got a brutal schedule to start the season, back-to-backs and travel up and down the coast multiple times a week. Their line is the same as it was last year, Tanner with Chris and Fish, and the chemistry hasn’t gone anywhere, so at least they’ve got that. They connect on all four of the Sharks’ goals when they play in Vancouver, and they picked a good game for it, since it’s not a school night, which means Tanner’s dad and Kaitlyn made it out.

The team’s flying out that same night, so Tanner’s spared coming over for dinner, just gets a couple minutes to chat in the hallway after the game. Kaitlyn beams when she sees Tanner and Chris round the corner; sprints straight for him and laughs as Tanner scoops her into a hug. She’s in his jersey, not a Canucks one, which Tanner wasn’t expecting, but is a nice surprise.

“Uncle Tanner, you played _so_ good!”

He didn’t, really, his goal was mostly a fluke, but he musses Kaitlyn’s hair as he puts her down. “Had to, didn’t I, with you watching?” He nods over at Chris, who’s been standing a couple feet back, watching silently. “This is my friend Chris; Chris, this is my niece, Kaitlyn.”

“Hello,” Chris says, and does this little wave as Katie cranes her neck to peer up at him. Her mouth drops open.

“You’re _so big_ ,” she says, amazed, and Tanner’s dad snorts, but Chris just kneels down to Katie’s level, no hesitation at all.

“I can reach stuff on really tall shelves,” he says, very seriously. Katie looks even more awed. So- the kid is good with kids. Figures.

Tanner jumps as his dad claps his shoulder, evidently happy to let Chris and Katie chat. “That dog of yours is doing alright?”

“Yeah, dad, she’s good.”

“And the others?”

“A couple of them got adopted from the website Jason made,” Tanner says, and ventures a smile, inviting, as he relays the contents of the last update email. “Bunch of kids from Tlingit Nation are planning this adoption drive for the festival next year. You should come up and see.” He tries to say it casual, like, no pressure, but his dad just shrugs.

“Ah, sometime,” is all he says.

They don’t linger. Can’t. Tanner’s dad takes the five minutes they have to talk about Garret, then about Lindsey’s blog, and he doesn’t know about the drinking, so he doesn’t talk about that, and that’s maybe as good as it’s going to get. He says goodbye with another pat on Tanner’s shoulder and a “nice to meet you” to Chris, and that’s that.

Tanner can feel Chris’ gaze on him, heavier than normal, the whole time he’s saying goodbye to his dad. Can’t quite be surprised about it, then, when they’re on the plane, waiting for takeoff and Chris broaches the subject.

“Do you and your dad talk a lot?” he asks.

Tanner shrugs. Stops mid-text, setting down his phone. “You know,” he says. Not really an answer. He doesn’t like the idea of it being that obvious, of Chris looking at him and his dad and immediately picking up on capital-I Issues. Doesn’t like talking about overly personal shit, in general.

“Oh,” Chris says, and he doesn’t call Tanner out on it, which is how Tanner knows, yeah, he’s actually thought about this conversation. Chris plays with the end of his seatbelt. Tanner watches. It’s quiet for a while, just the white noise of hushed conversations around them, then Chris adds, “I don’t know mine, if you were going to ask.”

“I wouldn’t ask something like that,” Tanner says. He’s wondered before, sure. Still wouldn’t have asked, ‘cause dead parent or absent parent – Chris has the latter, and Tanner’s had the best of both worlds, but neither’s a particularly fun conversation topic.

“People do sometimes,” Chris says. “I think they think I’m supposed to be sad about it.” He doesn’t look sad now, just sort of matter-of-fact. Tanner gets it. It’s a weird, vaguely shitty feeling, when your parent doesn’t want to be around you. Not all weepy like people want it to be. Always a little embarrassing, too, and not in any sort of rational way that you can articulate to people who haven’t lived it.

Not that Tanner’s dad-

He wasn’t _bad_. He paid for the house and food and hockey and everything else, he just- it ruined him, when Tanner’s mom died. Tanner’s never seen anyone crumpled up into a little paper ball of nothing, the way his dad was, after mom. Both gone at once, so Tanner just had Garret and a house full of foster dogs that no one wanted to adopt.

Chris is still looking down at his feet. He was reaching out, Tanner knows, looking for that unsaid sort of ‘you’re okay, you’re normal’ that you get from someone living the same thing as you. That’s another shitty feeling, reaching out and having someone pull back.

Tanner leans back so his head thuds against the headrest. Veteran leadership, and all that.

“My dad and I don’t talk that much,” he admits, maybe a little gruffly. “I kind of lied.”

Chris is watching him, now, intently. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Tanner says, and elbows Chris, after a second, offers a grin to stop things staying too serious. “I still turned out pretty great though, eh?”

“I think so,” Chris says, sincere instead of chirping. It disarms Tanner, a little. Chris is too nice for this league. Possibly for this sport.

Tanner’s going to spend the rest of his career punching people who try to hurt this kid, and he’s not even really going to mind it.

“Want to help me beat your mom at chess?” Tanner asks, instead of all the shmoopy stuff, and Chris smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, so Tanner takes out his phone, and the plane starts taxiing along the runway, and they do.

\---

“Listen,” Andy starts.

“No,” Iggy says, flat.

“Iggy.”

“No.”

Tanner’s going to kill them both. He might start wearing his ear plugs to the gym.

“It’s one practice,” Andy reasons, flopped over on an exercise ball while Iggy stretches on the floor next to him. “Seriously, think about it, it’s probably best for the team to not overdo it, right, with a game tomorrow?”

“We’re not cancelling morning skate so you can have sex,” Iggy says, unimpressed, and Andy groans, slides off the ball and wheels on Tanner instead.

“Mack,” he says, entreating, and Tanner holds his hands up, pleading the fifth.

“Do not drag me into this, talk to your captain,” he says, and grins when Iggy glowers at him.

“Guys, come on,” Andy pleads. “Do you know how rare a booty call from this girl is, she’s a _model_ , this is not an opportunity I can pass up.”

“You have sex with models always,” Iggy says, weary.

“Not _hand_ models,” Andy says, and Tanner takes that as his cue to tune them both out, flinging a towel over his shoulder and heading over to get a drink.

Chris wanders over as Tanner’s chugging his water, gives him a little nod hello.

“Good to play tomorrow?” Tanner asks, because Chris has been with the trainers all afternoon.

Chris nods. “They taped my shoulder,” he says, rolling out like he’s demonstrating that it still works. He dodges halfheartedly when Tanner sprays his water bottle in his direction. “What are they doing?”

Tanner glances over at Iggy and Andy, who are now fully wrestling, which isn’t an official workout, but probably still counts. “Earning their paycheques,” he says, fond. “Come check on my sticks with me?”

They trail down the halls of the rink, heading for the rack of sticks. The equipment people take care of this stuff, but Tanner always likes to make sure his sticks feel right in his hands before a game, routine left over from juniors and tossing equipment in a pile without much rhyme or reason.

The place is bustling around them, the underside of prep for a game that no one sees because it’s not on the ice. Chris hasn’t stopped looking fascinated by every part of it, like he’s backstage at a concert.

“Hey,” Tanner says, and tosses one of his sticks to Chris, who catches it, scans it, and immediately raises his eyebrows.

“You changed the curve.”

“Nice, right?”

Chris hums, approving, looking at the blade of the stick. “This will help your shot.”

“That’s the goal, kid,” Tanner says, light. He’s not too egotistical to get advice from fucking hockey Jesus and ignore it. He accepts the stick back from Chris, turns it around in his hand, testing the weight of it.

“My mom’s back in town tonight,” Chris says, conversational, leaning on the end of the stick rack.

Tanner looks up. “Oh yeah?”

“Her school has reading week,” Chris nods. “You should bring Stacy down and have dinner with us.”

And Tanner’s not about to say no to either Chris or Stacy, right, so he showers again once he gets home, even shaves while he’s at it. Runs a comb through his hair. Puts on a non-team-issued t-shirt. Nothing, really.

“I had to anyways,” he tells Stacy, who honestly looks more skeptical than a six pound dog should be capable of looking, but whatever, Tanner’s right, it was long past time for him to get tidied up. “Keep giving attitude and I won’t bring you.”

Stacy’s knows he’s bluffing, Tanner’s pretty sure, because she’s waiting by the door and even wagging her tail when Tanner scoops her up to head downstairs to eat. He shifts her to his left arm and uses his free hand to knock on the door of Chris’ place.

Xiaozhi’s the one to get the door. “Stacy!” She lights up, then, “Oh, hello Tanner, also.”

Tanner laughs, sets Stacy down and shuts the door behind him as Xiaozhi kneels down to pet her, cooing hellos. Still in a baby voice, still adorable, even if she won’t admit it.

Tanner crouches down across from her, scratches Stacy’s head as she darts between them, soaking up the attention. He can hear Chris and Luka chattering away from further into the apartment, can smell something cooking. “Good flight?”

“It was fine,” Xiaozhi says. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Tanner says, and Xiaozhi catches his eye, offers this little smile. Her eyes are happy, the real kind of happy, and it makes Tanner bite back a laugh, not for any good reason other than a matching happiness. It’s strange, a little, being face to face after texting all summer, because they’ve been in the same room maybe three hours, total, in all the time they’ve known each other. Not bad strange, Tanner doesn’t think.

“You’re here all week?” Tanner asks, and when Xiaozhi nods, he asks, casual, “Think you’ll have time for a game or two?”

“I’ll check my schedule,” Xiaozhi says, and this time, Tanner doesn’t hold back a smile.

\---

“Okay,” Tanner says, mostly to himself, thinking out loud. “Okay okay, so it’s about balancing my sacrifices, here.” He hovers his hand over the board, finally makes his choice. It’s their second game on the night, Chris and Luka long-since bored out of the room.

“Time to die for the cause, little guy,” Tanner says, gravely, to his pawn. “Your surviving family will be generously compensated.”

Xiaozhi tilts her head as she takes Tanner’s piece. “You talk a lot,” she says. Not irritated, more of an observation. Tanner gets the feeling it’s easy to know where you stand, with her.

“You are not the first person to say that,” he says, easy. “Counterpoint, though, is you don’t talk enough.”

Xiaozhi scoffs as he makes his next move. “I talk to lecture halls of people for a living.”

Tanner tries to think about what Chris has said before. “You teach languages, right?”

“Structural linguistics.” She pushes one of her pawns ahead.

“What’s that?”

Xiaozhi answers quick. Tanner gets the impression she gets asked this a lot. “I study language apart from the idea of languages as socially or historically contingent things.”

Tanner’s looking at the board, debating where to go next. “Like as sounds?”

“Yes.” Xiaozhi sounds mildly impressed. “Sort of.”

Tanner hums, moves his knight and takes hers. She set him up for that one, he thinks, but he can’t see the trap. “How’d you get into it?”

“When I moved here I had to learn a new language,” Xiaozhi says. “It was pertinent.”

Tanner can’t imagine having to go to school in a language other than the one he’s always known. Can’t imagine doing well enough at it to get a fucking doctorate, either, or to ever get fluent like Xiaozhi. He likes it, the way everything she says comes out shaped all deliberate by her accent, like she’s thought it first, and then _that_ thought puts a new one in Tanner’s mind.

“Do you think in English?” he asks, curious.

Xiaozhi takes his queen with a pawn. Tanner knew it was a trap. “You don’t need to ask things because you feel obligated to help me talk,” she says.

“I like talking to you,” Tanner says back, because it’s the truth. She’s straightforward. Smarter than him, in a fun way. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”

Xiaozhi looks at him like she thinks he’s fucking with her, and Tanner tries his best to convey that he’s not via, like, his face. It must work, because she sighs and answers the question.

“It depends.”

They’re making moves fast, now, with fewer pieces left on the board. “Depends on what?”

“If I’m using technical terminology at work,” Xiaozhi says, “or discussing Christopher’s hockey, those are in English. If I’m making a shopping list or thinking for myself, those are in Mandarin.”

“How about right now?”

“Right now,” she says, “I am thinking-” She says something in Mandarin.

“Translation?” Tanner asks. If she’ll just move her bishop-

“You talk a lot,” Xiaozhi says, deadpan.

It takes Tanner a second to realize that he got played, that she’s chirping him, and he laughs out loud when he does. Xiaozhi looks proud of herself, which is probably worth the chirping.

“Fine,” Tanner says, grinning. “Fine, that was good. I’ll shut up.”

“Don’t,” Xiaozhi says, and she’s looking at the board, not even at Tanner. Maybe in kind of a deliberate way.

It throws Tanner, a little. He’s pretty sure that was almost a compliment.

Xiaozhi finally decides on a move – the bishop – and looks up at Tanner. He drops her gaze, feels a little like he got caught, which is stupid.

“Want to know what I’m thinking right now?” he asks. It’s not changing the subject, really. Just- light. “I’m thinking,” he moves his knight, watches her realize what he’s doing, too late, “that my genius plan to distract you worked even better than I thought it was going to.”

He flicks her king to topple it over, watches her eyes flash.

“Rematch,” she says.

“Just to clarify, this is you admitting that my plan was in fact genius, right?” Tanner asks, and Xiaozhi does that almost-there smile again, like she can’t quite hide it, which feels like an achievement in itself.

And, see: Tanner’s been in the league long enough to be intimately familiar with the way that the days tend to blur together in the regular season, games and practice and a million reheated dinners, but this is the kind of week that feels like punctuation, right from the beginning, from that night.

It’s weird, at first, existing in the same space. Tanner didn’t want to be presumptuous, figuring Xiaozhi would want to spend time with her kid without having to deal with Tanner, like, imposing himself, but Chris doesn’t seem keen on taking a break from being Tanner’s shadow, and Tanner’s reasonably sure that Xiaozhi would just tell him to fuck off if she wanted him to, so that first night turns into a second, and then a third, and then the whole week.

She talks more than before. Not- it isn’t, like, floodgates opening or anything, because some people just aren’t loud and Xiaozhi’s one of them, but she’s got opinions, and she’s not afraid to share them, which Tanner guesses is probably good, if her job’s teaching people.

He learns a lot. He learns, in the car on the way to Monday’s game, that making fun of him for enjoying country music is another shared Chan trait, apparently, and can’t bring himself to be convincingly grumpy about it. He learns that she gets kind of a murder face when she’s watching Chris play hockey, and doesn’t notice herself on the jumbotron until the person next to her starts waving like a goofball.

He learns that the way to get her talking, to really get her talking, is to ask about her research. It lights her up completely, the only thing that gets her more excited than chess.

“You really like the professor stuff,” Tanner says, Tuesday morning when they’re playing over breakfast in Chris and Luka’s kitchen, talking quiet because Chris is still asleep, taking advantage of the day off. Latest thing Tanner’s learned: Xiaozhi Chan makes fucking incredible banana pancakes.

“Adjunct professor,” Xiaozhi corrects, and Tanner does not know what that means, but he can get from the tone of her voice that it’s meant to be a self-deprecating thing. “Back to a sessional lecturer after this semester, realistically.”

That part, he can infer. “You don’t have full time yet? How?”

Xiaozhi sort of shrugs. “Academia.”

“You overestimate the NHL if you think most of the people I know know what the word ‘academia’ means,” Tanner informs her, only half-joking.

“You know what it means,” Xiaozhi says, like verifying, and, really, she sets Tanner up perfectly, it would be a crime for him not to take advantage.

“Yeah, ‘course,” he says, nodding real serious. “It’s when you do surgery on- what’s it called, the appendix? The little thing by your stomach.” He waits, lets it linger, then, “Oh my god you believed me _again_ -”

She tears off a piece of pancake and flings it straight at Tanner’s head, and he almost falls off his chair laughing, and that’s how he learns that she has really good aim and no qualms about playing dirty.

Tanner only throws a single pancake piece back at her, because they’re both adults, in theory, and they spent the whole morning at the kitchen table, even as Chris and Luka get up and start milling around.

They manage to squeeze in one more game before Chris pesters Tanner into going for a run with him – so much for an off day – but then he’s right back after he’s showered, manages to win another match before his hair’s even dry. Xiaozhi comes with him to walk Stacy later that afternoon, once Luka’s doing homework and Chris is napping next to him in the living room.

“Want to hold her?” Tanner asks, and Xiaozhi nods, eyes lighting up as he hands her the leash. It’s more a formality than anything, because Stacy’s not going anywhere fast even if she wanted to, but they meander along the front of the building and Xiaozhi looks delighted by it, so Tanner can’t help but be happy too.

“You ever had a dog?” he asks, as they’re heading back up in the elevator.

Xiaozhi shakes her head. “I wanted one,” she says, which, yeah, Tanner was getting that impression. “A- what is it called, Saint Bernard, like in the movie.”

Tanner laughs, enjoying the mental image. “That dog would be bigger than you.”

“You just have a very skewed perception of normal height,” Xiaozhi informs him, prim, and Tanner grins.

“Oh my god, you’re one of those short people who hates getting called short.”

“I’m much taller than the average height for women in North America,” Xiaozhi says, proving his point right there. “Objectively, I am not short.”

“You’re like, up to my shoulder, chess team,” Tanner teases, and Xiaozhi rolls her eyes, gets this determined kind of look on her face and lifts up on her toes, gains an inch, max; Tanner does the same, and they’re grinning at each other, this stupid, jokey little moment. They both teeter off balance as the elevator comes to a stop, and Tanner reaches out to steady Xiaozhi automatically as she does the same, ends up hanging on to her elbow for the briefest second before pulling back.

Tanner trails her back into the apartment, sets Stacy down so she can go curl up with Chris to sleep.

“Sorry I don’t know how to have a conversation without chirping,” he says, because he feels bad about the short thing, and neither of them has spoken since the elevator; then, “That’s, like-”

“I know what chirping means, Tanner,” Xiaozhi says before he can explain it, slipping off her shoes and setting them neat by the door. They’ve both lowered their voices since getting back to the apartment, careful not to disturb the boys.

“Okay,” Tanner says. “Okay, then, just- if the short joke thing was crossing a line of, like, acceptable stuff to say to you-”

“It wasn’t,” Xiaozhi says. “It’s- fun?”

“Yeah,” Tanner says. “Yeah, for me too.” He sits down across from her, back in the kitchen, and this time, when their eyes meet, it stays quiet, this sense of uncertainty for the first time all day. He can’t remember the last time he talked this long with someone not on his team. With someone at all, maybe.

He huffs a laugh at himself. “I’m bad at this.”

“Me too,” Xiaozhi says, and tucks her hair back behind her ears, says, real matter-of-fact, “Most of the people I talk to are colleagues, I don’t have that many friends.”

“Me neither,” Tanner says, truth for a truth, and Xiaozhi gives him, just, the most skeptical look he’s ever received.

“I don’t believe you at all,” she says.

“Wow, tell me what you really think,” Tanner quips, and Xiaozhi looks at him like _come on,_ all dry _._

“You’re friendly,” she says, like that’s any kind of argument.

“That’s not the same thing as having friends,” Tanner points out, and then he has this moment of _oh shit_ , seizing up all terrified in his chest, because if she asks why he doesn’t have that many friends anymore he’s going to have to either tell her or make something up, and neither of those is a good option.

He shouldn’t have bothered worrying. “According to Chris, the team likes you very much,” is all Xiaozhi says, and Tanner jumps on that.

“That’s because we as hockey players are manbabies who move away from their families and imprint on the nearest adult,” he explains, only half joking, gesturing real big. “Like big, sweaty ducklings.”

Xiaozhi looks like she wants to laugh. “To clarify, you are the mother duck, in this metaphor.”

“Well, I guess, but that makes me sound so much less cool than I am,” Tanner says, shooting her a crooked grin, and Xiaozhi holds his gaze for just a second before looking behind him and blinking like something’s caught her off guard.

“Is it already five o’clock?” she says – she was looking at the clock, then – standing to get out of her seat. “I have to make something for dinner.”

Tanner beats her to his feet, gestures for her to sit back down. “No, sit, you did breakfast,” he says, because fair’s fair. “I got food upstairs, I was going to do chicken parm.”

“I’m not going to make you cook for us,” Xiaozhi says, maybe a little stiffly, and Tanner waves her off.

“I can probably count on one hand the number of dinners I eat without your kid all season, if we’re going to start counting up who owes who food we’ll be here all night.” He thinks about it, reconsiders, just a little, “Unless it’s, like, a special ‘mom’s home cooking’ kind of thing, I guess?”

Xiaozhi snorts. “I’m not a good cook.”

“Well, then,” Tanner says, and looks her right in the eyes, dead serious. “Get ready for the culinary experience of your life, Xiaozhi Chan.”

She cracks, barely, looks away as she smiles like she’s doing it only by accident – she tends to do that, Tanner’s noticed – and relents; and she still insists on cleaning up after dinner, like she’s determined to make them square, like she’s waiting for Tanner to demand payment or something. He doesn’t, duh, just lingers to watch a couple periods of the Leafs with Chris, then pauses when Xiaozhi walks with him to the door.

“Culinary experience of your life?” he asks, joking, and Xiaozhi makes a face, but the look she gives him is appraising, thoughtful.

“Have a good night,” is all she says, and Tanner echoes, “Night,” and when he looks back before the elevator doors close, she’s still there.

Early Wednesday, Chris hasn’t texted back to confirm they’re good to go for skate, so Tanner stops by his place before the parking garage.

Chris opens the door mid-brushing his teeth. “Sorry, Mack,” he says through a mouthful of toothpaste. “Luka’s alarm went off after six and then he dropped a textbook so it took me a while to fall back asleep and then I woke up late.”

“Your mom’s got one week off and you wake her at six?” Tanner asks, mostly just chirping. They’ll make it on time, or close enough.

“Oh,” Chris says, dismissive, “She’s been up for a while, she just hid because she didn’t want you to see her with bad morning hair.”

Xiaozhi appears further into the apartment, pokes her head around the corner and narrows her eyes at Chris. “Really, Christopher?”

“…I wasn’t supposed to say that,” Chris says.

“Oh my god,” Tanner says, over-the-top on purpose as he covers his eyes, feigns like he’s about to faint. “The morning hair, it’s so bad, I can’t-”

Chris bursts out laughing, then, his toothbrush still hanging out of his mouth, and when Tanner peeks back over at Xiaozhi, she’s smiling too. She ducks her head as she does, mouth closed, the whole thing just a little bit begrudging, like, _nice try, still not gonna laugh._ Tanner got close, that time.

It’s a good practice, fast-paced and passes connecting like they’re magnetized. Good game as well, later that night, and during one of the TV timeouts, they show Xiaozhi up on the broadcast with Luka, both of them in teal sweaters with Chris’ name and number.

Tanner messes up Chris’ hair, playful, while Andy wolf-whistles from down the bench. Cameras are on them, it turns out, because Tanner gets asked about it after the game, one of those, “I know that you and Chris are close, have you gotten to know his family at all?” that means a fluffy team bonding story is getting published tomorrow.

“Yeah, I’ve been able to speak to them a bit,” Tanner says, because the reporters are just trying to do their job, and fluffy team bonding stories mean the team’s playing okay. “They’re good people, same as Chris. Not great at chess, though.”

There are a couple of uncertain chuckles from the beat reporters. “I’m guessing there’s a story, there?”

“Good guess,” Tanner grins, and doesn’t offer them anything else. It’s not a soundbite for a video, not the story for sharing, if it’s a story at all, the way everyone piles into his car to head home and doesn’t bother asking before assuming Tanner’s coming back to eat, even though it’s late and he and Chris are both exhausted. It feels like something personal, special, when, after Luka retreats to his room to work on some essay, Tanner gets to sit around the kitchen counter with the other two, eating leftover pasta and discussing Harry Potter, and that’s how he learns that Xiaozhi is a massive dork, in the best way possible. She looks utterly scandalized when she finds out that Tanner hasn’t read the series, which, sue him, it was the 2000s and he was too cool for books and anything that popular is probably at least a little overrated.

“You have to,” Xiaozhi says flatly, picking off the crust from her garlic bread.

“I don’t really read novels,” Tanner admits, a little sheepish, because he doesn’t want her to think he’s a _total_ dumbass.

“What do you read?”

“Uh,” he scratches his neck. “There’s this online newsletter about inspiring dog stories-”

“Harry Potter is better than that,” Chris chimes in loyally, stacking pasta on his fork.

“It’s about _magic_ , Christopher,” Tanner says, skeptical.

“Exactly.”

He looks at Xiaozhi, raising an eyebrow. “What happened to being realistic?”

“It’s very different,” she says, and Tanner pulls a face.

“Or you’re just a nerd who reads kids’ books,” he teases. “I expected something so much more scholarly from you.”

The corner of Xiaozhi’s mouth quirks upward, but she manages to stay serious. “Tell your teammate he’s not allowed to visit anymore,” she says to Chris, holding Tanner’s gaze.

“Tell your mom she’s not as good at realism as she thinks,” Tanner tells him, still grinning at her, and Chris looks at him kind of thoughtful, then back at Xiaozhi.

“He’s a Gryffindor,” Chris says. “I think.”

“Hufflepuff,” Xiaozhi says.

“Those aren’t words,” Tanner says. “None of those things coming out of your mouths are words, Chans.”

Chris smiles when his mom smiles, and that’s another thing Tanner learns as the week goes on, is just how much Chris looks up to her. Tanner figured as much before, sure, because he knew that buying Xiaozhi a car so she wouldn’t have to use transit was one of the first things Chris did when he signed, but he watches how carefully attentive Chris is around her, how Xiaozhi softens entirely when she speaks to her son, and it makes him feel like he’s eavesdropping on something important.

“That wasn’t Mandarin,” Tanner says, Thursday night, after Luka and Chris excuse themselves to bed and Xiaozhi says something to Chris that Tanner doesn’t understand after the goodnight. It sounded like a different language entirely.

“You speak Mandarin now?” she asks, dry, as they’re setting up the board for one last match. She answers the question without Tanner having to ask it. “It was ‘I love you’ in Russian.”

Tanner blinks. “You speak Russian?”

“No,” Xiaozhi looks vaguely wary, and Tanner can’t place why ‘til she continues, “We say it in different languages, I started when Chris was little.” She lines up her pieces one-by-one, stays focused on that. “It’s easier to say.”

Tanner does the same. “When it’s in a language neither of you speaks?”

“Yes,” Xiaozhi says. “Otherwise it’s too important.” She shrugs a shoulder, says, nearly offhand, “I try, for him. I don’t say it very much.”

Not that offhand – her eyes flicker up to his for a fraction of a second, like she’s waiting for him to give her shit. He wouldn’t, about this.

“I’ve said it first in literally every relationship I’ve ever had,” Tanner offers, and Xiaozhi meets his eyes for real, now, makes a face.

“That sounds terrible.”

“Oh yeah,” Tanner agrees, easy. “Younger me was deeply needy and _extremely_ exhausting.” He taps his king on the head. “Never in Russian, though.”

They trade smiles, something delicate about it.

“ _Every_ relationship?” Xiaozhi asks, nearly playful, and that’s the weirdest part, right, is that she seems to want to learn about _him_ , matching every question Tanner’s got with one of her own, remembering his answers like she’s paying attention.

Tanner maybe doesn’t really realize just how much attention she’s paying until it’s Friday, they’re sitting in his living room, and Xiaozhi says, apropos of mostly nothing, “I need to revise what I said before.”

“When?” Tanner asks.

“When I first arrived,” Xiaozhi says. “You don’t talk a lot at all.”

Tanner does this godawful snorted laugh, surprised. He doesn’t mean to, just- “Uh, have you met me, or…”

Xiaozhi doesn’t look deterred. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, other side of the coffee table from him, the chess board in between them. It’s dark outside, has been dark for a while. Neither of them has moved a piece in maybe twenty minutes.

“About yourself,” Xiaozhi amends. “You say a lot, but not very much about yourself.”

“I do.”

She doesn’t let him away with the bullshit. “Very selectively.”

“You’re not exactly an open book either,” Tanner switches tack, kind of thrown, and Xiaozhi still doesn’t miss a beat.

“I don’t pretend to be.” _Unlike you¸_ she doesn’t say, but Tanner hears it anyway, unspoken, and can’t help but feel a little- not shaken, shaken’s dramatic, just- people don’t call him out on this.

“I’m not _pretending_ ,” Tanner says, after a moment. “I-” He cuts himself off, unsure where to go from there. He stretches out his legs under the table, stalling a little. “I’m not pretending,” he repeats, finally. “Avoiding, _maybe_ , out of courtesy or whatever.”

“Courtesy to whom?”

Tanner raises an eyebrow. “’Whom’, fancy.”

“Avoiding,” Xiaozhi says, light, and Tanner kind of scoffs, unsure whether to laugh or not. He knows a dare when he hears one.

“Now you’re helping _me_ talk?” he teases, daring right back. Xiaozhi shrugs without dropping his gaze, and it feels like being on either side of a face-off.

Xiaozhi wins.

“Fine,” Tanner says, leaning his elbows on the coffee table and resting his chin in his hands. “Fine, Dr. Chan, what do you want to know?”

Xiaozhi says, straight away, “What’s your family like?”

“I have a brother,” Tanner says. “My dad lives in Vancouver near him. I see my aunt in summer back home.”

Xiaozhi tilts her head, looks interested. “Why is Stacy named Stacy?”

The important questions. “It was her name when she got dropped off.”

“You couldn’t change it?”

“She already knew it,” Tanner says. “Next one.”

Xiaozhi thinks about it. “Favourite food.”

“Pizza,” Tanner says; then, when she makes a face, he asks, incredulous, “You don’t like pizza?”

“It’s such an obvious answer.”

Oh good, she’s a hipster. “Because it’s good!” Tanner protests. “Literally, day I retire, I’m eating it for every meal, dad bod by the end of the week, max. What’s yours?”

“Movie popcorn,” Xiaozhi says, and might be trying not to smile, but she does a terrible job at it.

“And you’re giving me shit for _pizza_?” Tanner demands, laughing. “Bud.” It just slips out, and Xiaozhi doesn’t let it go sans-chirping, which is probably fair.

“ _Bud_?”

Tanner winces. “I know,” he says. “I know, I regret it already.”

“Good,” Xiaozhi says, eyes bright, and they’re both grinning when she asks, “If you could have a conversation with one person, living or dead-”

“My mom,” Tanner says, no questions about it, and then Xiaozhi’s doing The Face, and he groans. “No, c’mon, don’t do the dead parent thing.”

“I wasn’t,” she protests.

“You totally were,” Tanner says, frank, because he’s been getting the ‘oh god what do I say’ panicked face every Mother’s Day since he was eight, he knows it when he sees it, but he offers a small smile so she’ll know it’s fine. “It’s okay, I’m not going to cry or anything.”

He’ll give Xiaozhi this: she doesn’t bother with the apologies and put-on-sadness where Tanner has to awkwardly comfort someone about something they have no business being sad over. She just nods; asks, “Was she the one who enjoyed hockey, or…”

Tanner thinks about it, pushing his hair back. “I think it was more of ‘I have to homeschool these kids ‘til middle school, I need them out of the house a few nights a week or I’ll kill them’.”

“You were homeschooled?”

“Online school. Just ‘til sixth grade,” Tanner says. He grins, teasing. “And you couldn’t tell ‘til I told you, which means I turned out mostly normal, even.”

“Except for calling people _bud_ ,” Xiaozhi says, obviously messing with him, and Tanner rolls his eyes, shoves her toes with his, just light, under the table. She shoves right back.

And it’s maybe the way the night’s gone, a chess match abandoned in favour of talking, maybe just that she asked and listened, but Tanner grabs his phone, just on a whim.

“Here,” he says, making up his mind and not letting himself wimp out. “Here, look.”

He scrolls through his camera roll on his phone until he finds what he’s looking for and hands it over to Xiaozhi. It’s a picture of a picture, frame and all, of the family way back when things were good, before mom lost her hair. Garret’s twelve in it, Tanner all of two or three, smiling with all his teeth, hair so blonde it was practically white.

He watches Xiaozhi’s face as she looks at the photo; tries to interpret what her expression means and doesn’t quite manage it. Has to fight down this irrational twisting of anxiousness in his stomach at the vulnerability of it, handing someone something important like that.

“You look like her,” is what Xiaozhi says, as she finally hands back the phone. Tanner’s been hearing that all his life. It’s nice to hear again, anyhow.

“This one time,” he says, glancing down at the picture. “So we don’t get, like, _that_ much snow, but there was supposed to be a blizzard coming, and mom just got back from her chemo but dad had to leave for work.”

He settles into the story, enjoying Xiaozhi’s attention. “And he’s all worried about leaving her with just me and my brother, right, so he actually left the city early to come back on one of the supply planes, but he gets home and goes up to their room and she’s not there.”

“So it’s the middle of the night, he’s waking up me and Garret and freaking out, I swear to god he’s about to go out looking for her, but then we checked the room where the fosters would stay, and mom was just asleep with this, like, pile of dogs around her, because they’d been scared of the wind outside ‘til she calmed them down.”

Xiaozhi’s smiling by the end of the story, the way Tanner hoped she would be. “You said- supply planes?”

“Family business,” Tanner says; then, when she still looks unsure, “There aren’t, like. Highways. Or actual roads, in a lot of communities further north of us. So they fly in groceries and stuff.”

Xiaozhi tilts her head. “I thought you were from BC.”

“It’s- look.” Tanner decides it’s easier shown than said, and scoots over to her side of the table, gets a map pulled up on his phone. He feels her glance at him from closer than before, feels suddenly glad that he thought to wear one of the sweaters Iggy bought him and not one of his usual old t-shirts. Xiaozhi leans in to peer at the screen, and her hair brushes Tanner’s shoulder.

“So my place is right around here,” he says, zooming in on the map and leaning down so she can see. “It’s closer to Alaska than most people want to be.”

“But no roads?”

“No, we got a road, it’s just kind of small,” Tanner shuts off his phone, tosses it lightly on the table and settles back to talk, one arm stretched along the couch cushions behind Xiaozhi. “Like, okay, I still have to keep a hunting rifle in the house in case of bears.”

Xiaozhi looks appropriately horrified. “ _Bears_?”

“Literally, bears,” Tanner says, enjoying himself. “One hasn’t actually come near town in a few years, but it happens.”

“Why would you live in this place?” Xiaozhi asks, incredulous.

“It’s nice!” Tanner protests, because it is, good hockey and good people and lonely, sure, but the place where he put his life back together, where he was happy. “Aside from-”

“-the bears.”

“All the bears, yeah,” Tanner nods, and he can’t stop smiling big and then Xiaozhi laughs, actually laughs out loud the way Tanner hasn’t heard her laugh before, because he knows for a fact that he’d remember it if he had.

And, see, he’s won a Stanley Cup and a scoring title, in his prime, but his favourite thing, the thing he likes best ever since he was little, is making people happy, making them laugh, and this is better even than that because he really had to earn it.

He laughs himself, after a second, surprised and kind of helpless. Xiaozhi’s got a good laugh. Tanner doesn’t remember the last time he’s heard a laugh like it, like it’s bursting out without her permission, taking up her whole face. It’s-

It’s just _nice_ , the two of them sitting close in Tanner’s apartment, and the place doesn’t feel as big as it usually does; and if Tanner’s been this happy before, this happy recently, he can’t remember that, either.

\---

Saturday arrives too fast, and goes by too fast once it arrives. Tanner drops by the team docs so they can check on the cut on his chin where he got clipped with a high stick at last night’s game, skates ‘til he can’t breathe at morning practice then chats with the coaching staff before the meeting with the rest of the leadership group.

He walks to the car with Iggy after, offers the appropriately outraged responses while Iggy rants about his family back home.

“You want to come eat tonight?” Iggy asks. “The spicy sushi, what is the fish one?”

“Sushi’s mostly fish,” Tanner says. “Can we rain check? Xiaozhi and I were going to try and get a game in once she’s back from dinner with the boys.”

Iggy raises an eyebrow at him. It would be more disconcerting if Tanner hadn’t seen him practicing in the mirror before.

“What?” he asks anyways, because Iggy’s clearly got something to say. “You jealous, Cap?”

Iggy doesn’t look away. Tanner refuses to let it make him squirm.

“It’s a week,” he says. “It’s not- anything.”

“I didn’t say it’s anything,” Iggy says, but Tanner gets the distinct impression that Iggy’s reaching some sort of conclusion of something-ness all the same. “You stole her son, it makes sense she wants to check on you.”

Tanner rolls his eyes, doesn’t bother correcting him. Chris in common is how it started, he figures, and maybe the only thing that made Xiaozhi not dismiss him out of hand, but it’s not like it’s just because of Chris, this week. He likes being around her, that’s all, and tonight’s the last night he’ll be able to do that for who knows how long, so he makes sure he’s ready to head out once she arrives at his door post-dinner.

“Wait, don’t take off your shoes,” Tanner says, stepping back to let her in. “We’re going to the park, I want to show you something.”

Xiaozhi hovers in the doorway, looking confused. “At the park?”

Tanner clips Stacy’s leash on, straightens up. “Trust me.”

And Xiaozhi must, or at least must be curious about what Tanner’s doing, because she lets him lead them out of the building and down the road, a few blocks away. Progress is slow, what with Stacy taking her time sniffing around, and Tanner ends up carrying her by the time they get to the actual park, because the walk is a lot at her age and with her arthritis, but she’s content enough to sit in his arms and eye everyone they pass on their way.

“Voila,” he says, once they arrive at the square with the giant chess set. It’s one of those park initiatives that’s supposed to make the place more fun, a black and white grid painted on the pavement and massive pieces, past Tanner’s waist.

“This is ridiculous,” Xiaozhi says, but she was smiling as soon as she saw the set, and Tanner knows that bringing her here was a good call.

They play, because of course they do, and they get exactly as competitive as usual, in public and all. There’s this elderly couple sitting on the nearest bench, watching them and not pretending not to be. It’s a little weird, maybe, but kind of fun too, like their chess match is a spectator sport, and Tanner hams it up a little, can’t help it.

“I kind of feel bad,” he says, as he takes the last of Xiaozhi’s pawns. They’re both barely hanging on. “Owning you in public like this?”

“That’s nice of you,” Xiaozhi shoots back, and she heaves her queen along the board. Tanner sees the play too late. “Checkmate.”

The old couple applauds, and Stacy barks like she’s joining in. Tanner groans, all theatrical – mostly theatrical, he really thought he had this one – but can’t not grin at Xiaozhi’s little curtsy, all proud of herself.

“You two are very sweet,” one of the old ladies informs them. “Aren’t they sweet, Anne?”

“It’s all her, ma’am,” Tanner agrees, easy, and Xiaozhi looks at him, mouths “ _ma’am?”,_ so Tanner pulls a face, sticking his tongue out to make her smile.

The sun’s going down by the time they finish fixing up the super-sized chess set, say goodbye to Anne and her wife, and head over to sit at a picnic table with coffees from the snack bar – well. Coffee for Tanner, tea for Xiaozhi. She makes a face when Tanner sits on the table part of the table instead of the bench, but then she hops up after him so they’re sitting level, Stacy curled up to nap on Tanner’s other side.

He’s been waiting for Xiaozhi to call it, to want to head back home and sleep because it’s getting late and she’s travelling tomorrow, but she just continues their conversation. “So it was the New York Rangers, then here-”

“Columbus in between,” Tanner corrects, handing her her cup of tea. “Just for a couple seasons.” He scoots back just a little, careful to leave her room. “You don’t have to worry about Chris moving that much though, player like him isn’t going to be a rental, he’s here unless he wants to leave. You been to New York?”

“The state,” Xiaozhi says. “Not the city.”

“Oh, you gotta visit,” Tanner says. “It’s like- at least to see it, y’know?” He bumps their knees together, playful. “Makes Toronto look puny, like, hardly even a city.”

Xiaozhi bumps him back, so light he barely feels it. “I grew up in Beijing, Tanner, I know cities,” she says, like _duh_.

“I’ve never been there,” Tanner says, conversational. “Never anywhere near there.”

“Really? You look just like a local.” She says it utterly deadpan, with this glint in her eyes. She’s fucking with him again.

Tanner rolls his eyes, but can’t hide a smile. “That was terrible,” he informs her, trying and definitely failing to sound like he means it. “This friendship can support one person making terrible jokes, and that person is me.”

Xiaozhi sort of glances at him when he says the friendship thing, and Tanner wonders if he was being presumptuous, if they’re still in, like, acquaintance territory. He doesn’t mean to be obvious about looking back at her, but he must be, because there’s this stretched out moment of eye contact, this moment that feels bigger than it has any right to.

A kid runs past chasing his sister, both laughing. Tanner and Xiaozhi both look away, and the moment passes.

Tanner exhales, leaning back on his hands, just comfortable. It’s a nice night out. The kind of night he imagined, signing in California, summer weather long past a time when it has any right to feel like summer.

“New York was a good place to live?” Xiaozhi asks, eventually, and it takes Tanner a second to realize she’s picking up where they left off, looking at him expectantly. He doesn’t mean to hesitate to answer, but he must, because she says, “Or not.”

“No,” Tanner says, quick. “No, it’s- it was good. Great fans. Maybe just not the best situation for me.” It sounds like an excuse. It’s not meant to. For all he knows, he’d have made the same decisions anywhere else in the world. It was maybe just easier to make them, in a city like that.

Xiaozhi looks curious, asking a question without saying anything.

“I was such an idiot,” Tanner admits, scratching at the back of his neck. “Not that I’m a genius now, but- y’know, like, teenage boy from middle of nowhere ends up in New York with a million bucks and no parental supervision, literally every stupid thing you can imagine, I probably did it.” He’s skirting around the topic, careful in spite of himself. It’s not the kind of thing he talks about.

Xiaozhi looks at him, a little daring. “I bet you I was more stupid,” she says.

“You?” Tanner asks, disbelieving. “ _You_ were a rebellious teenager, chess team?”

Xiaozhi sits up as tall as she can, there with her hair back and her sweater all buttoned up, looking exactly how someone who voluntarily spends most of her life at school should look. “You don’t believe me?”

“Not that you were a dumber kid than I was,” Tanner says, frank. “Not a chance.”

“I cheated on every chemistry test in high school,” Xiaozhi says. “I still don’t know what valence electrons are.”

“That’s nothing,” Tanner says, competitive, and rolls up his sleeve to show the ink around his bicep. “I got a tattoo of mountains when I was seventeen. Not even mountains from my province. Literally just random mountains ‘cause I thought they looked cool.”

He watches Xiaozhi take in the ring of mountains. He’s added to the sleeve since, and it looks fine, he guesses, or at least has been there long enough that he’s used to it. He still remembers the look on Garret’s face, when Tanner came home for the holidays that year. Tanner laughed about it, then. Like he said: dumb.

“They’re literally cartoons,” Tanner says. “Admit defeat at your earliest convenience.”

She doesn’t. He didn’t really think she would.

“I got my nose pierced and thought my parents wouldn’t notice.”

“I got scratched for missing curfew three times, my first season.”

“I spat in a rude customer’s food when I was a waitress,” Xiaozhi retorts, holding Tanner’s gaze like a challenge. “And I told him after, and I got fired. Very stupid.”

“Not that stupid,” Tanner says, decisive, because if you’re an asshole to waitstaff you deserve what you get, and then it’s like- he gets caught up in being competitive, maybe, or he’s just more honest than he intends to be, because he says, “I had to go to AA meetings.” He just says it, just like that. “Like, that’s the level of drinking I reached.”

He doesn’t know why the fuck he told her that. He doesn’t tell people that.

Xiaozhi’s mouth was open to say something else, but she closes it now, and looks thoughtful.

Tanner ruined it. He goes to apologize straight away, embarrassed – he makes one non-hockey friend and dumps his baggage all over her, it’s too much, he knows he’s too much – “Sorry, you don’t have to-”

“The first time I ever snuck out to go to a party, I got pregnant,” Xiaozhi says.

Tanner blinks.

He wasn’t expecting that, how weighty it is in between them, matching what he blurted out like a fair trade, like if they’re both weird and vulnerable neither of them is.

She said it on purpose, Tanner knows with a sudden conviction, a kindness so he wouldn’t feel bad about dropping the alcoholic thing, and he’s absurdly grateful for it. Doesn’t know how he ever thought she was anything close to cold.

They’re both looking at their feet, their drinks still mostly too hot for actual drinking. It’s quiet, just the noise of the park around them.

“How old were you?” Tanner asks, softer than before.

Xiaozhi is holding her tea with both hands, toying with the edge of the lid. Tanner can’t read her face. “Seventeen.”

“Boyfriend, or-”

Xiaozhi scoffs. “Maybe I thought so,” she says, dry. “He was twenty-three, though, so…”

“Ah, fuck,” Tanner says. He knew Chris’ dad wasn’t in the picture, which already didn’t make him particularly inclined to like the guy. Good to know the not-liking is justified. Predatory asshole.

“I wasn’t going to keep it,” Xiaozhi says. She says it almost absently, even though Tanner knows her voice enough to know that it’s deliberate, taking effort to sound normal. “But my parents put me out of the house anyway, when I told them.” She looks out at the rest of the square, a bit of steel in her voice. “I didn’t want it to be for nothing.”

She keeps being nothing at all that Tanner expects her to be. “You had a kid out of spite,” he realizes, then touches his knee to hers again and leaves it there, some kind of silent solidarity. “You’re kind of badass, Xiaozhi.”

She looks like she wants to laugh at herself, but not in the funny kind of way. “It was because I was scared to be by myself,” she admits, quiet. Doesn’t move her knee. “It was irresponsible. I didn’t know how to take care of a baby, or anything about hockey or anxiety or learning disabilities or- anything.”

“He turned out pretty great,” Tanner offers, because it’s not his place to comment on anything else, and Xiaozhi finally meets his eyes, gives one of her almost-smiles, the kind more in her eyes than anywhere else. She knows, obviously, what an awesome kid Chris is. Doesn’t need Tanner to tell her that. He thinks it’s the kind of thing worth saying anyways.

“Your parents ever reached out?” Tanner asks, after a few moments of no talking. Xiaozhi shakes her head, something carefully expressionless about it, and Tanner recognizes it because he’s done it too, a subtle brush-off when something hurts to talk about.

“Sorry,” he says, and means it.

She shrugs minutely. “I don’t need them.”

“Still,” is all Tanner says, because there’s not much he can say to that, and even less that would be helpful. He knows what it is to not have a parent when you need one. “I wish it hadn’t happened to you. That part.”

Xiaozhi nods, acknowledging, and the moment ticks by, fragile.

“How long have you been sober?” she asks, then. She’s changing the subject, which is probably fair, at this point. Tanner’s shit doesn’t feel as scary to talk about anymore.

“Ten years,” he says, easy enough. “I guess- eleven in January. On and off a few years before that.”

“It’s why you don’t have friends,” she says, a guess rather than a question.

Tanner nods. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, just me, it’s just- when people know you a certain way, they expect you to be that way. It’s hard to change when you’re still surrounded by those people.” He blows his hair out of his face. “It was shitty of me, to cut everyone out like I did.”

Xiaozhi doesn’t try to debate it with him, just asks, “Are you glad you did?”

“Yeah,” Tanner nods, then thinks about it, refines his answer. “I mean, more ‘doing’ than ‘did’, there’s the whole ‘once an addict…’ thing. But it’s like- easier, now, to look back and see how shit it was. I’d have to be crazy to start up again. Plus, I’m, uh,” he ventures a smile. “I’m pretty sure skating hungover is solely a twenties thing.”

It’s the kind of thing he can make jokes about now. You get good at laughing at yourself, eventually. Xiaozhi gives him a smile back, a small one, maybe a little bit of a sad one, but not like pity. Not like she’s laughing at him, either. Like understanding. There’s something to be said, Tanner thinks, for having someone know what you’ve been and not run screaming.

He bumps their shoulders together. “Any more deep, dark secrets?”

“Just that one,” Xiaozhi says. “You?”

“Oh, tons,” Tanner quips.

If they weren’t friends before, he’s damn sure that they are now, and it’s a great fucking feeling. He wants to hug her, maybe hold on for a while, except he doesn’t want to make it weird – not that it’d be weird, they’re friends, it wouldn’t be weird – so he just waits ‘til they’re done their coffee, hops to his feet and offers his hand to help her down from the picnic table. She takes it, after a second. They both let go quick.

He doesn’t think he’s imagining it, how they’re both taking their time walking back to the building. Ken the doorman waves them in, smiling, with a cheery “Night, folks”, and Tanner bounces Stacy in his arms once he and Xiaozhi get into the elevator.

He swears to god it takes under five seconds to get to the seventh floor. The elevator doesn’t usually go this fast. The _week_ doesn’t usually go this fast, not like this past week. It feels like Xiaozhi’s been here a day, maybe a year, like it could’ve been ten and still wouldn’t have been enough.

It’s not anything, he told Iggy.

“Guess I won’t see you for a while,” Tanner says, all casual.

Xiaozhi nods, lingering in the doorway of the elevator. “Thank you for the tea,” she says. Casual.

“Yeah, ‘course.” Tanner waves her off, and then he’s not sure what to say. It’s not- this isn’t a situation he’s familiar with.

“Stacy’s gonna miss you,” is what he comes out with, eventually. Brilliant, Mackenzie. Conversational genius.

“I’ll miss her,” Xiaozhi says, and steps into the hall.

Tanner has the absurd urge to tell her to wait; to press all the buttons and just stay in the elevator going up and down all night. He doesn’t. It wouldn’t make any sense if he did.

“Bye, Xiaozhi,” he says, finally.

“Bye, Tanner,” Xiaozhi says, and she looks like she wants to say something else, Tanner thinks, maybe, but then the elevator doors slide closed, and that’s that.


	4. Chapter 4

The fun thing about texting is that when Tanner’s shuffling onto the plane for a pre-dawn flight home, there’s a message there waiting for him. Sometimes multiple messages. He likes to take his time responding, stretch it out right through idling on the tarmac, ‘til takeoff.

Iggy talks through a yawn, his accent thick this early in the morning. “What you’re smiling for, Mack?”

“What’re you being nosy for?” Tanner retorts, and he ignores the implication because there’s nothing to imply here and Chris is stowing his bag two feet away and anyways, he’s busy typing up a response to Xiaozhi.

They still play chess on their app. Still text. She hasn’t acted differently, since Tanner said the alcoholic thing. People usually do, once they figure it out, even if Tanner doesn’t tell them. The A-word freaks them out, he thinks. Like it’s contagious.

He tells her as much, or texts it, at least, while they’re in the middle of a match, and she replies back straight away, _Would you prefer if I did act differently?_

 _No,_ he sends, then, _Is it weird_

Xiaozhi doesn’t ask what he means. _Not too weird,_ she sends, and that’s that.

They text a lot. Tanner doesn’t mean to, in case he’s bothering her or something, but one message to make fun of her for losing the latest game turns into her making fun of Tanner for losing the next three turns into a conversation that just doesn’t stop.

Tanner’s long past thinking Xiaozhi doesn’t like talking. Still finds himself surprised, a little, at how much she has to say, at how much he’s got to say right back to someone so different from him. Dumb stuff, sometimes – they bicker about favourite music, figure out that their birthdays are exactly a week apart, which is kind of fun – and sometimes conversations where Tanner’s got to use every brain cell he’s got left to try to keep up with her, like when Xiaozhi sends him a link to an article she wrote that got published. Tanner doesn’t understand a single fucking sentence of it but she has fun explaining it to him, he’s pretty sure, and he has fun listening, even reads a couple of easier articles about linguistics, after, so he’ll understand better the next time she brings it up.

It’s a fair trade, more or less: Tanner talks her into watching the Canucks game when their nights off match up, for once, and they message through the whole first period, Tanner sprawled on his rug with Stacy napping on her couch, Xiaozhi across the continent wherever she’s watching.

She’s not a huge hockey fan, she tells him so herself, but far as he can tell, she follows the play pretty well after years of watching Chris. It’s not the best game, objectively, not a lot of art to it, but Xiaozhi seems entertained enough by Tanner’s behind-the-scenes info, _We were lineys at worlds hes worn the same pads for over a decade,_ or _No it went off ORiellys foot so its his goal._

Fourth time he gets caught typing and misses a scoring chance, he sucks it up and calls her before he can let himself second guess it. “I can’t type fast enough,” he says, like an excuse, even though it’s not, really.

“Can you talk fast enough?” Xiaozhi asks, mild enough that Tanner knows she’s teasing.

“It’s like you don’t even know me, Dr. Chan,” Tanner deadpans, and Xiaozhi’s eye roll is practically audible, but she stays on the line and puts up with him narrating the game, even interjects with the odd comment about someone’s face or judgement about the colour commentators that gets Tanner laughing. She’s funny. Sarcastic as hell, in the best way.

He stays on the phone most of the night, a few nights later, keeping her company while she’s marking literally a hundred papers because they didn’t assign her a teaching assistant. It seems kind of fucking horrifying, in Tanner’s opinion, and if he’s ever regretted not doing more school he doesn’t, now.

“How come you didn’t pick an easier career?” he asks, pushing his greens around the frying pan while they cook. It’s a genuine question. She stays up working like this almost every night, he knows, and she teaches hectic hours, and travels more than most people would think is normal.

“Why didn’t you?” Xiaozhi shoots right back, without missing a single beat.

It’s a fair point, probably. “I’m not good at anything else,” Tanner says, honest; then, because that was kind of a bummer, “Maybe pretty enough to be a trophy husband, I guess.”

“Your self esteem is terrible.”

“Excuse you, did you miss the part where I said how pretty I am?” Tanner demands, all faux-outrage. Prettier before his nose got broken this many times, probably.

“I wish I had, actually,” Xiaozhi says, but she’s just chirping, and then she groans. “This student cited Wikipedia, _again_.”

“Oh my god, how dare they?” Tanner goads, so she’ll lecture him about reliable sources.

He eats his dinner standing by the kitchen counter, dumps his dish in the sink once he’s done and sprawls out on the couch, which Stacy allows because she decides to nap on his stomach.

“How many left?” he yawns, flipping through the channels.

“Thirty-four,” Xiaozhi says, and for a few moments, conversation is replaced by the scratching of her pen on paper. On Tanner’s TV, the Warriors are up by thirty.

“So?” he asks.

“So?” Xiaozhi asks.

“So why academia?” he asks, conversational, folding his hands under his head and settling in.

Xiaozhi hums, sort of wry. “It’s not a good reason,” she says.

“What does that mean?”

It takes her a few seconds. “People treat you with respect when you have a doctorate,” she says, eventually. “It suggests competence.” Her voice is different, as she speaks, now, something almost fervent about this. This matters to her.

“I’ve been someone’s mother for more than half of my life,” she says. “And when people find out that you’re a parent, and you were a teenager when it happened, that is- everything you are.” She breathes a laugh, not quite like anything’s funny. “I know that I’m good at research, and at teaching, and it’s something that is- it’s mine, and I want to be something as…”

“As you,” Tanner finishes, quiet, when she doesn’t, and now Xiaozhi’s laugh is a little flustered, like she’s embarrassed.

“It’s very selfish,” she says.

“It’s not,” Tanner says, shaking his head as if she can see him.

“Yes, it is.”

“Isn’t.”

“Compelling argument,” Xiaozhi says, dry.

“I can go all night, baby,” Tanner drawls, and Xiaozhi’s eye roll is practically audible, so, good, she’s not being embarrassed anymore. She shouldn’t have been in the first place. Tanner is, sort of. Not because of anything she said, just-

It’s never had to be an either-or thing, for him. Even when having a family was a hope he had – he and Linds would talk about it all the time, back when they still talked about that kind of thing, because it was never a choice Tanner had to make, career or a family, and it hasn’t been for most of the guys he’s played with, either. Hasn’t had to be, the convenience that comes with salary in the millions making sure the wife or partner or someone could stay home with the kids when the NHL schedule kicked in.

He feels like kind of a jackass for not considering how it must have been for Xiaozhi, seventeen and responsible for a kid and still somehow managing to claw her way into doing what she loves. Feeling selfish for doing even that much, when Tanner knows her enough to know she’s the least selfish person on the planet.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says. Not chirping, this time.

“Thirty-three left,” Xiaozhi says, which is Xiaozhi Chan for ‘quit talking about emotions now, Tanner’, so Tanner does, just changes the subject and cheers her through, cellies loud when she finishes marking the last paper. His neighbours probably hate him, but he can hear the smile in Xiaozhi’s voice, the pride there, too, so he doesn’t care.

He keeps waiting for things to get weird between them, for her to figure out that he’s needy and exhausting, and still hasn’t gotten the hang of being fun and confident when he’s not drunk, and mostly has elderly dogs and his eight-year-old niece and a Russian with attitude problems for friends. He waits and waits and keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it just- doesn’t.

Tanner scores an OT winner. Volunteers at some outreach event with Iggy. Loses spectacularly at a marathon seven-game chess series. Misses a practice with a pulled muscle, gets cleared just in time to play for the first game of their next roadie only to end up back in the locker room with a wad of bloody cotton stuffed up his nose – a fist this time, it’s always the fucking Knights – when they wrap up postgames and a bunch of the guys head out to lick their wounds via Vegas. Tanner’s done the strip enough times that he doesn’t feel like he’s missing much when he taps out and heads back to his room. He showers, cleans up his face and throws out the bloody tissues; gets into sweats and a t-shirt and flops down onto the bed to check his phone. His chess app shows that Xiaozhi saw his latest move forty minutes ago, but she hasn’t made her own yet.

Tanner grins. _I totally trapped you didnt I :)_ he sends.

 _No_ , is all Xiaozhi replies, maybe twenty minutes later, enough time that Tanner’s read two different articles and liked maybe fifty dog pictures on the internet. She still hasn’t made a move.

Tanner frowns. She’s pissed. He doesn’t know why she’d be pissed, but she is.

 _I can feel you being irritated with me from across the continent,_ he types. They don’t bullshit with each other, he doesn’t think.

This time, Xiaozhi replies quickly. _Fighting in sports is dangerous._ She types the period and everything. So- okay. Tanner knew she was pissed. Didn’t expect this to be the reason, really.

 _Agree_ , he sends, and watches the little typing bubble as she writes a response.

 _And unnecessary_.

_Conditional disagree_

_Why?_

_Game was going to OT,_ Tanner types. _If I didnt fight him Iggy was about to and Iggys better than me at 3v3._ He’s not bullshitting this, either – you learn to pay attention to stuff like that, after spending as long as he has in the league. Team comes first. Not like he’s winning the Lady Byng anytime soon, anyways.

 _Hockey is not chess,_ Xiaozhi replies, _But I conditionally concede._ Then, a few moments later, _Fighting is inconsiderate, though._

Tanner chews his lip, confused. _Hows that?_

This response takes longer for her to send. _Forces me to worry about someone I’ve known for two months._

And that-

That’s new.

Tanner steps out onto the balcony of his room before he dials her. It’s warmer outside than in. “You’ve known me for way more than two months, chess team,” Tanner says, by way of greeting, once the call goes through. “Over a year, technically.”

“Only a year if you define knowing someone as exchanging meaningless small talk,” Xiaozhi retorts. She’s not _that_ pissed at him, then, if she’s skipping right to their usual giving it to each other. And she’s got a point, maybe, because Tanner technically met her over a year ago but this, the way they are now, is newer than it feels, only really in place since she visited.

“Oh, we’re gonna do semantics about the true meaning of knowing a person, now?” he asks, playful, because no chance he’s admitting she’s right.

She doesn’t hesitate. “Semantics are literally my job, yes.”

“Do you say nerdy shit on purpose, or does it just kind of-”

“-it just happens, I think.”

“Yeah, I was gonna say,” Tanner says, and he bites back a smile; leans on the railing and drums his free hand on the metal. “All you need are glasses, some braces, maybe a pocket protector-”

“Your ability to access the white boy jock hive mind is very impressive.”

“And here you went and befriended me anyways, you sellout,” Tanner teases.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Xiaozhi says, and it’s not even her chirping him, she’s just being frank.

“Ouch,” Tanner says, but he can’t not laugh. “Is that why you didn’t like me when we first met, ‘cause I fought that night?”

“You don’t know that I didn’t like you.”

“Pretty sure you made fun of my hair,” he says. “And my name. And-”

“You started that!” Xiaozhi protests, and Tanner can hear the smile in her voice. Good. “You didn’t like me either.”

“I didn’t know you,” Tanner counters.

“And you do now,” Xiaozhi fires back, half a question.

“On purpose, too, even,” Tanner says, and it catches Xiaozhi off guard, he thinks, because she does this half-laugh and goes quiet. Not bad quiet. Just.

He breathes out in a huff. Feels real full up, all of a sudden, and not sure exactly what with. “God, you’re so…”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” he says, honest. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect to like you this much, I guess.”

It’s simple with her, talking like this. Sensible like breathing.

Tanner looks out over Vegas. It’s all lights, a million different colours. He’ll still never in his life get his head around this many people in one place. “You know there’s only one explanation, right?” he asks, eventually.

There are sounds on Xiaozhi’s end of the line like she’s sitting down. “For?”

“For us knowing each other like this,” Tanner says. “We’re caught in a time warp. We’ve actually been friends at least a decade. Maybe two.”

“The only plausible explanation.”

“It really is,” Tanner agrees; then, because he called for a reason, in the first place, and he’s genuinely curious, “You were worried about me getting hurt?” His voice comes out a little lower. Not quite teasing.

Xiaozhi scoffs. “No.”

Tanner grins up at the sky. She’s terrible at lying. “Weird, ‘cause I kind of remember you writing something like-”

“I think I said ‘mildly concerned’, actually,” Xiaozhi says, and she’d nearly sound stern, if Tanner didn’t know her.

“Can’t believe you basically just admitted you care about me, chess team, gross,” he teases.

“I did not admit that.”

“Mm, but you totally did though,” Tanner says, grinning, and then he says, sing-song, “You’re my frie-end, you li-ike me.”

“You are a child,” Xiaozhi chastises, exasperated, but she’s laughing, and Tanner fucking loves getting that laugh from her, the helpless kind like it’s taking her by surprise. He loves talking to her in general, really, the way it’s somewhere between a competition and a debate every time and still manages to be easy and playful and just _nice_ , having someone who’s not one of the boys or part of his family or a reporter asking for a quote. Someone his age, too, because Tanner loves the guys, but always being the oldest one in a group of mostly twenty-something year-olds can get tiring sometimes. It’s nice to not have the expectation of being the veteran leadership, to just- be. Equal footing.

November rolls over into December, and then, case in point, it’s the annual New York trip, and it starts same as ever. Tanner says hi to all the MSG arena staff, asks about kids and stuff. A couple of them compliment his haircut. That part’s nice, it is, really. The rest-

It is what it is, being back in the city, and Tanner gets a cheer from the crowd way he usually does when he steps on the ice for his first shift. He’s fine, it’s one game to get through, and he doesn’t think he’s being too obvious about it, but he feels Chris watching him on the bench, maybe a little concerned.

“It’s fine,” he says, even though Chris doesn’t ask out loud. “Let’s just win this.”

“Okay,” Chris says, then proceeds to get the next four fucking goals, two of them off the most utterly filthy solo rushes Tanner has ever seen.

The room is exuberant after the win, hyped like they just got their names on the Cup. Everything’s over the top, in New York.

“We’re making playoffs this year,” Iggy crows, half-naked and practically giddy. “I _feel_ this, we’re doing this.”

“We are,” Chris agrees, and he laughs, goes kind of red when Iggy drags him down and presses a sloppy kiss to his forehead.

“This beautiful fucking guy,” Iggy announces to the room at large, raising his voice to be heard over the ensuing hooting and wolf-whistles. “Four fucking goals, listen, boys, we’re going and getting him _fucked up,_ yes?”

“Drinks on Cap,” Andy translates, flinging his jock at Iggy’s forehead in what, by his standards, is probably a gesture of gratitude. It gets Iggy to loosen his death grip on Chris, and Tanner watches, bemused, as Chris sits down in his stall and tries and fails miserably to wipe the smile off his face.

“You’re allowed to go have fun, you know,” Tanner tells him, quieter than before, because he knows Chris enough to know when he’s feeling sociable. “You know the guys want you there.”

Chris hesitates. Not a downright no – he wants to go. Tanner watches him struggle with himself for a few seconds. “Can you come?” Chris asks, finally, and he’s looking at Tanner all pleading, so-

Fuck.

Tanner hates this fucking city and everything he was here, thinks he might be terrified of it, if he’s being honest, but not enough to ruin this night for his rookie, or to let said rookie go out drinking in New York City unsupervised, and not just because Xiaozhi might murder Tanner for letting that happen.

So.

 _So,_ Tanner tells himself real firmly, _no reason why a bar here is any different from a bar in San Jose, and you’re fine there_ , and that’s that.

The bar they end up at isn’t one of the ones Tanner used to frequent. It’s a lot louder, way more expensive, just down the street from the team hotel and with a clientele that mostly seems to be business types letting loose.

“Don’t sell me any booze, okay?” he tells the nearest bartender, who salutes him maybe sarcastically, and Tanner’s honestly not sure they heard him over the crowd, but he feels better for having said it anyways; settles in to try and enjoy the absolute circus sideshow that is the boys trying to figure out what kind of drink Chris will like best.

Drunk Chris, it turns out, is basically sober Chris sans-filter, who, Tanner learns, is basically the most inquisitive person on the planet. Chris’ questions cover, in the first hour they’re out, everything from what Tanner’s tattoos mean to whether Chris is bisexual enough to count as bisexual to whether he needs to work more on his wrister.

Tanner answers best he can – personal stuff, if you think you are you probably are, don’t change a thing you’ve got thirty goals – and gradually forgets to be stressed, because Iggy squeezes in next to him at the table and wards off any of the guys who start bugging Tanner about drinking, and everyone’s in a good mood at not being the joke of the league anymore, and it’s just- fun.

It’s really fun.

“Okay, that’s enough drinks for you, kiddo,” Tanner says, once Chris starts diagramming powerplay setups on the back of a napkin while the guys cheer him on. They’re surprisingly insightful setups – seriously, Tanner’s keeping the napkin and bringing it up next time he meets with the coaches – but Chris keeps on alternating between yawning and giggling, and it’s probably best to end his first time drinking on a high note.

“Dude, dude, Mack, you’re not his _dad_ ,” Fish complains. He’s barely understandable, he’s laughing so hard at himself.

“Yeah, dad, you’re not my dad,” Chris copies, then, when it makes Fish laugh harder, Chris starts laughing too, all proud of himself.

“He’s daddy,” Iggy says, then something in Russian, and then he loses his shit laughing, and the three of them are all collapsing against each other in the booth, giggling like little kids.

“I’m never letting any of you literal children live this down,” Tanner informs them, but he can’t stop smiling, maybe a little endeared in spite of himself. They’re idiots, sure, but they’re his idiots.

It’s a process, getting Chris out of the booth – “You are no fun, old man,” Iggs cusses him out cheerily and doesn’t move a muscle to help – and when Chris is upright he starts wandering off, so Tanner gets an arm around him to help him back to the hotel.

It’s slow going, takes nearly twenty minutes to get to the right floor of their hotel, not least ‘cause Chris stops every few steps to ask another question.

“Mack?”

The elevator dings as it shuts behind them, and Tanner shuffles Chris down the hall. “Yeah, bud.”

“How are the other guys going to get to bed?”

“They’re a lot better than you at being drunk,” Tanner says, easy. “More experience.”

“Oh,” Chris says, then, “Mack?”

They stop in front of Chris and Andy’s room. “Still here.”

“Do you think Luka’s going to be sad I tried alcohol for the first time without him?”

“I doubt it,” Tanner says, bemused. Even the boyfriend can appreciate a four goal night, he thinks. “Room key?” Chris digs it out of his pocket, and Tanner swipes it in the lock and herds Chris into the room. _Tries_ to herd Chris into the room.

Chris doesn’t budge. “It wasn’t even that good, I don’t know why he likes it,” he says, clueless. Just chilling in the doorway, taking up pretty much all the room. “Like, what’s beer and stuff even made of?”

“Yeast, I think?” Tanner says. “Wheat?”

“Like _bread_?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Tanner says, and uses all of his effort to not laugh out loud at the utterly amazed look on Chris’ face. He finally gets Chris into the room and shuts the door behind them. “Sit down, okay?”

He doesn’t actually know which bed is Chris’, but it probably doesn’t matter. Tanner would put decent money on Andy not coming back before morning, because he found a bachelorette party the second they arrived and immediately and cheerfully let himself become the centre of attention.

Chris perches on the edge of the nearest bed, still clearly processing the bread thing, and Tanner can feel him watching as he goes to the minifridge.

Chris yawns hugely. “Mack?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you like how beer tastes?”

“Lots of people don’t like beer for the taste,” Tanner hedges, choosing a bottle and straightening up, shutting the fridge.

Chris is still watching him. “How come you didn’t have any drinks?”

“Used to,” Tanner says, careful. “I don’t anymore.” He doesn’t elaborate, just sits down on the other bed, across from Chris, and hands him the blue Gatorade after unscrewing the cap. “Drink up, lightweight.”

Chris does as he’s told, makes it through maybe two thirds of the bottle and then goes quiet for a little while. He looks real pensive. At least he’s not clingy when he’s tipsy. Beats Tanner there.

“Are you going to tell my mom?” Chris asks, eventually.

“You’re an adult and you had fun with your team, Chris. She wouldn’t be mad,” Tanner says. He’d bet she’d be thrilled, actually, at Chris feeling safe enough to let loose a little. Tanner’s pretty fucking proud of it himself.

“I know she wouldn’t be _mad_ ,” Chris says. “But are you going to tell her?”

“Why would I?”

Chris shrugs. “You and her talk a lot. You’re friends.” He says it frankly as anything, and he’s not the passive-aggressive type, not even when he’s sober, but Tanner wonders all the same.

Chris is only barely twenty, still mostly a kid by Tanner’s standards. And sure, he’s going to be a hall-of-famer, probably, but he also pretty clearly looks up to Tanner. Not literally, obviously, ‘cause he’s got five inches on him, but the way that means he trusts Tanner, and that means a lot. It does, and Tanner takes that responsibility seriously, because he knows by now that Chris doesn’t trust easy, but it’s also- Chris is a private guy, introverted to the point of almost-compulsion, and he likes Tanner, yeah, but there’s a difference between liking a guy and wanting him to get all up in your family’s life, to be friends with your parent. Tanner doesn’t know if Chris knows how much he and Xiaozhi really talk. Doesn’t know what parts of the unwritten teammate rulebook cover this kind of thing.

“Is it weird?” Tanner asks, a little tentative. “Me and her being, like-”

“Not _too_ weird,” Chris says, thoughtful. “I like it when you’re with us.” He yawns again, and says through it, “Mom smiles a lot when you’re around.”

The honesty throws Tanner, a little. Feels like something he maybe shouldn’t have heard. “Good,” is all he says. “That’s really good.”

Chris sets the Gatorade down on the floor and curls up on the bed without going under the covers. “But you’re still my friend too, right?”

“Always, buddy,” Tanner promises.

“Good,” Chris says, real decisive. His eyes are drifting shut like he can’t help it. “I’m really glad I met you.”

Tanner doesn’t know why he has a lump in his throat. There’s a distinct possibility that he’s going soft.

Chris mumbles, “Night, Mack.”

It takes Tanner a second. “Night, kid,” he says, eventually. It comes out quiet as anything.

Tanner doesn’t linger, just shoves a pillow under Chris’ head and leaves a glass of water and the trash can next to the bed. He pauses and snaps a picture of Chris snoring, sends it to Xiaozhi along with an older one of Stacy, equally passed out. _Spot the difference,_ he types, then pockets his phone and leaves Chris to sleep it off.

He runs into Mikey out in the hall, opening the door to his room just across from Tanner’s.

“Big guy’s doing okay?” Mikey asks, nodding in the direction of Chris’ room.

“Now? Yeah. Tomorrow morning? Debatable.” Tanner shrugs, smiles when Mike laughs.

“Weird being back here?” Mikey asks. They played against each other semi-regularly at the Garden, when Tanner was with the Rangers and he was with the Isles.

“Not too weird,” Tanner says, and it’s only once he’s got his PJs on and he’s cozied up in bed that he realizes he was telling the truth. It’s usually… a lot, being back in New York, and Tanner knows he’s okay being around booze but he tends to avoid it here, just in case.

Tonight was okay. He was here, they played and won, and Tanner went out with his friends and they all got hammered and Tanner didn’t and he was okay. He had fun.

His phone lights up on the bedside table.

 _You sent the same picture twice,_ Xiaozhi sent, even though it’s later than she’s usually up. Tanner imagines her reading his message and rolling her eyes, doing that reluctant little grin she does.

She smiles a lot when Tanner’s around, is what Chris said, and then Tanner’s the one who can’t stop smiling, thinking of that.

Fucking Chan family. He’s definitely going soft.

 _:)_ , Tanner replies to Xiaozhi, because it’s probably a pretty accurate depiction of the ridiculous look on his face right this moment, and then he puts his phone down, plumps up his pillow, and falls asleep listening to the noise of the city outside, familiar like something he hasn’t let himself remember in years and years.


	5. Chapter 5

They’re hanging on to a playoff spot as the holidays approach. Tanner gets to babysit Mike and Em’s new baby daughter at the family skate, spends the whole time playing peekaboo to make her do her little gurgling baby laugh, which makes the whole event infinitely more tolerable. 

They beat Detroit, make it to the shootout with Boston, and then the last game of the Atlantic road trip is in Toronto, a matinee right before they get a few days off for the break. The city’s buzzing this time of year, same as always, and Tanner still fucking despises the cold, but he finds the nearest barber to their hotel and ventures out to get his hair trimmed; borrows a cable-knit sweater from Iggy and wears it over one of his dress shirts with the end result that he looks slightly more like a respectable adult.

“Why do you look fancy?” Andy asks, when Tanner and Chris head out later, the night before the game. 

“I don’t,” Tanner says. He _doesn’t._ Feels it, maybe, but- whatever, that’s just because Iggy spends more on clothes than the GDP of a small country. “You ready, Chris?” 

The traffic’s shit in the city, the roads slippery with ice. It makes the drive take longer than it should. Even longer when Tanner gets their uber driver to stop outside a bakery so he can run in and buy a box of assorted desserts.

“You don’t have to bring anything,” Chris says, like he’s being very polite not laughing at Tanner.

“I have _manners_ ,” Tanner says, stubborn, and he sees Chris eyeing the sprinkle-covered sugar cookies, so he gets the baker to throw a few of those in too. 

If he was nervous at all for dinner at the Chans’ place it fades pretty much as soon as he gets through the door, because Chris gets tackled with a hug by Luka, here since Monday, and Tanner gets swarmed by the non-Luka members of the Smith-Patel family. Tanner remembers meeting Luka’s parents, Heather and Vraj, way back at the start of Chris’ first season, real briefly. Remembers them being incredibly friendly. They’re that times a hundred now; this bubbly pair of people, a bit on the older side, closer to what Tanner would expect from a couple with a twenty-year-old kid. 

He knew they were neighbours, maybe didn’t fully understand the extent to which Chris and his boyfriend’s family are close. Tanner gets herded into the kitchen, doesn’t even have time to get through saying hi to Xiaozhi before Vraj is cheerily narrating as he seasons something in this big covered dish that he pops into the oven before opening a drawer and hunting for a serving spoon. He’s used to their kitchen, dodging expertly around Xiaozhi as she makes the salad. 

It’s more of a novelty than it should be, seeing her like this. She’s still not _loud_ , not by any means, because that isn’t her. Just- she’s the way she’s been with Tanner, recently, all dry humour and gentle scolding. Comfortable in her own home. 

Tanner hovers around trying to be helpful until Heather says cheerily, “They don’t let me cook anymore, ever since I tried doing quinoa and the fire department had to come again” – implying they’ve had to come more than once, which, sure – and drags him over to the table to sit and chat, her words. 

She seems like the artsy type, big chunky wooden necklace and all, but it also feels distinctly like a cross-examination, Heather firing questions and Tanner trying to answer without making a complete idiot of himself. It’s mildly scary, but then she starts talking about her work with non-profit law, and she’s apparently worked on a bunch of animal rights stuff, so Tanner decides he likes her. 

“That’s right, you do charity work with animals, don’t you?” Heather asks, like she googled him before this. 

“Some, yeah,” Tanner says. “Mostly just dogs. My aunt does this mobile vet clinic and I’ve been trying to get some other programs like it going in the area.” 

“That seems like a lovely thing to do,” Heather says, encouraging, and Tanner nods. Can’t help getting into it. 

“It is,” he says. “It really is, ‘cause accessible spaying and adoptions and veterinary care are kind of an issue in some of the remote communities around where I’m from, right, and people love their dogs but they have trouble taking care of them when they get sick because for-profit vets charge a premium even if they’re willing to travel way up north in the first place.” 

“A socially aware jock, you’re a gem,” Heather says, all approving, and then she raises her voice. It takes Tanner a second to realize she’s talking to Xiaozhi. “Jo, you didn’t tell me Chris’ new sports friend was _principled_.” 

There’s a lot to dissect there – _sports friend –_ but Tanner’s first priority will literally always be seizing opportunities to give his friends shit, so he locks eyes with Xiaozhi across the kitchen and mouths, “Jo?” 

She purses her lips, shaking her head and clearly trying not to laugh, and Tanner has to hide his in a cough. It’s nice, like an inside joke, and Tanner holds her gaze, just happy in the moment. It’s a good moment. 

He forgets he was having another conversation ‘til Heather clears her throat, gentle. 

“Sorry,” Tanner says, tearing his eyes away from Xiaozhi. “Sorry, repeat that, I zoned out.” 

Heather has this knowing look on her face, glancing over at her husband like they’re maybe doing an inside joke too, like Tanner just told her more than he said out loud. 

“Don’t worry about it, hon,” she says, kind, and then she pats his hand across the table, all mom-like so that Tanner can’t help but feel that whatever test she was giving him, he passed. “What you _should_ worry about is that you said you have a maltese and it’s absolutely ridiculous that I haven’t seen pictures yet.” 

“Wait ‘til you see the one of her in her winter coat,” Tanner says, and then, because his second priority after giving his friends shit is literally always showing off how his dog is the best dog on the planet, he obliges. 

They’re pretty squished around the table when dinner’s ready, between the six of them and the ludicrous amounts of food Vraj made, but Tanner picks a seat and pulls out the chair next to his for Xiaozhi.

“Thank you,” she says, then, wry, “Hello, by the way.” 

Tanner opens his mouth, but before he can even say hi back, Luka starts squeezing behind them to get to his spot, all “’scuse me” and “oops, do you mind-” so they have to scoot their chairs in close. Tanner hardly gets to talk to Xiaozhi after that, because Vraj sits down on his other side and meets Tanner’s eyes, clearly intent on getting to know him more. 

“So, Tanner, Chris tells me you’re doing well this season, eh?”

He’s a really friendly guy, more chilled-out than his wife and son. Tanner knows Chris thinks really highly of him, and it’s easy to see why, as he asks them both about their season with genuine interest, makes a few equally genuinely awful dad jokes while they eat. He’s also, as it turns out, the best cook on the entire fucking planet. 

“You _need_ to give me this recipe,” Tanner says, two extremely generous helpings later. “Like, a dumbed-down version, but I need this in my life, how did you make this?” 

“The trick is fluffing the potatoes before you season them,” Vraj says, clearly pleased at the interest. “You cook?” 

“I mean, dubiously well, but yeah,” Tanner says, and they pass around recipes for a while before getting roped into whatever conversation about politics the girls and Luka are having. Grown-Up Conversation, Tanner figures, so he shoves another forkful of food into his mouth and prepares to shut up and listen, but Heather turns to him and asks-slash-demands an opinion, which-

“Uh,” Tanner says, a little thrown by all the eyes on him. “I mean, their party’s whole thing is ignoring science, right?” 

“But can’t you argue that normalizing it like that is just letting them get away with it?” Luka asks, looking like a clone of his mother, and Xiaozhi speaks up. 

“You can’t suggest there’s no difference between identifying a problem and normalizing it,” she says, and Tanner is mildly distracted by both her defending his point and her going all razor-sharp smart – terrifying yet fucking awesome – but he hangs in with the conversation. He’s not, like, as informed as the academic types at the table, certainly not about local stuff, but he watches the news, he knows enough to at least ask questions, and he finds himself sitting up a little straighter without meaning to, proud to be asked in the first place. 

Tanner realizes who-knows-how-long later that he’s got his arm slung across the back of Xiaozhi’s chair, and he sees Heather notice when he moves it, self-conscious, but she doesn’t say anything and if Xiaozhi notices, she doesn’t either. 

It’s not like any sort of dinner Tanner’s attended – they all linger at the table way past once everyone’s done eating, clearly enjoying each other’s company, all three of the Smith-Patels debating some book while Xiaozhi chimes in with the occasional comment. Tanner’s mostly just listening, trying to follow along, when Chris stretches and gets up, meets Tanner’s eyes and nods his head toward the sink full of dishes.

“I’ll wash, you dry?” Chris suggests once they’re at the sink, so Tanner grabs a dishtowel. They get a sort of assembly line going, cleaning the dishes and half-listening to the others’ conversation. 

“Everyone at the table’s kind of a nerd, huh?” Tanner asks.

Chris nods, easy. He’s relaxed here too. “All nerds. For my whole life.”

“Oh, all twenty years? That long?” Tanner chirps. 

“You _are_ old, wow,” Chris says. 

“Iggs is a bad fuckin’ influence on you,” Tanner retorts, flicking the soaked towel at Chris’ face. “Used to be such a nice rookie, so quiet-” 

Chris laughs, swatting Tanner away, and they get through the whole sink’s worth of dishes by the time the others start leaving the table. Everyone disperses gradually, Chris heading out to meet up with a friend from high school, Luka excusing himself to head back next door with his parents, who hug Tanner goodbye at the door like he’s a long-lost friend instead of their kid’s boyfriend’s teammate.

“Next time you’re in town we’re grilling, my friend,” Vraj calls, all jovial as he makes his way the ten feet to his own front door. 

“Looking forward to it, man,” Tanner says, grinning, and returns Heather’s wave before shutting the door and retreating back into the warmth of the house. 

He exhales into the sudden quiet. Feels like he’s catching his breath for the first time in hours. In a good way, he thinks.

He doesn’t linger in the hallway, conscious of the feeling of being left on his own in someone else’s home. Being in the kitchen is better, because Xiaozhi’s standing by the counter, pouring boiling water into two mugs set out in front of her. 

“They,” Tanner starts, grabbing the mostly-empty dessert plates from the table, “are…” 

Xiaozhi doesn’t look up from pouring the tea, real focused. “Characters?”

Word right out of Tanner’s mouth. “Exactly like their son,” he agrees; then, “I liked them.” He means it. 

“They liked you.” The way she says it, it’s a fact, not a compliment. Not just saying it for the sake of it.

“Yeah?” 

“Yes.” 

Tanner ducks his head to hide a smile, not sure what to do with the frankly absurd swelling of pride in his chest. He really wanted them to like him, for tonight to go well. He isn’t quite sure where that came from, either. 

He sets the stack of plates in the sink, nods over toward the framed pictures on the far wall, mostly just for something to talk about. “That’s Chris?” he asks, then, when Xiaozhi glances over her shoulder and nods, he crosses the kitchen to get a closer look. 

It’s a school picture, the one Tanner noticed first, Chris in a sweater vest with a round face and the exact same haircut he’s had as long as Tanner’s known him. He looks more serious than any elementary schooler Tanner’s ever met, which is the most Chris thing ever, probably. That’s the biggest picture – the rest are smaller, the kind you get printed in bunches. A couple more of Chris’ school ones, one of him and Luka in suits, prom or something.

There’s only one picture with Xiaozhi in it. Chris can’t be more than two in it, in this little pair of overalls, looking right at his mom. Xiaozhi in the picture looks like a kid – she practically was, Tanner reminds himself – and she must not have known that someone was taking the photo because she’s smiling real big at Chris, making this goofy face, all round-cheeked with her hair shorter than it is now, flying all over the place, and Chris is laughing. It’s a good picture, how happy they both look. It kind of-

It does something to Tanner’s heart, that picture.

He feels Xiaozhi appear next to him, and when he glances down at her, she’s looking at the pictures too.

“Nice photos,” Tanner says, and accepts the mug of tea she hands him. It’s just the right side of too hot, warm against his hands. 

“Do people usually hang bad ones?” Xiaozhi asks, and looks pleased with herself when Tanner rolls his eyes, and then they’re standing there side by side. Her sleeve brushes against Tanner’s arm. Outside the window, Tanner can see more snow starting to come down.

He catches her eye. “Hi,” he says, finally, simple.

Xiaozhi smiles, just small. “Hi,” she says, soft, and every last one of Tanner’s nerves is gone for the first time all night, now that it’s just the two of them again. He likes people, he does, but he likes this too. He was worried, a little, that it would be weird being in the same place again. It’s not, not even close. 

The moment stretches out, another inside joke, maybe. 

“I have something for you,” Xiaozhi announces. 

“Other than the tea?” Tanner asks, but Xiaozhi’s already heading into the living room, so he trails after her. The room is on the small side, an oldish sort of couch and armchair, a coffee table with a laptop and a neat stack of papers on it. A Christmas tree with white lights in the corner. There’s a low shelf under the TV that’s stuffed with books and board games, and that’s where Xiaozhi goes. For a moment, Tanner thinks she’s going to take out a chess board, but what she hands him is a book. This old paperback, all dog-eared pages and, on the front, _Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone._

“Oh my god,” Tanner says, trying and failing miserably to hide a smile. She remembered. “You going to assign me a book report, too, professor?” 

Xiaozhi shrugs, eyes bright. “I might.” 

“You know I’m really not a novel person,” Tanner protests as she goes to take a seat, pretty half-heartedly, because he already knows he’s going to make an attempt, because she wants him to. It’s not _that_ big of a book. “What do I get if I finish it?”

“The next book,” Xiaozhi says, fighting a smile even as her voice is all bossy. She tucks her feet up close so Tanner can sit down on the cushion next to her. Tanner wasn’t really sure what to expect, house rules and all that, but Xiaozhi’s got her socked feet up on the couch, blowing on the mug of tea she’s holding in both hands. She looks- it’s cozy, is the word that springs to mind, and it catches Tanner a little off guard how nice it is. He _likes_ it, seeing her at home. 

Tanner sets the book down carefully on the table and sips his own tea before setting that down too, leaning on his knees and just exhaling, content. It’s been a hectic night, but a good one. Feels like it’s going to keep being a good night, the two of them sitting here, the kind of quiet that Tanner doesn’t feel the need to fill. 

Tanner looks over at Xiaozhi and finds her already looking back, a slight crease between her brows. Contemplative, maybe. 

“You’re staring at me, chess team,” he says, and Xiaozhi drums her fingers on the side of her mug, a little bit anticipating. Keeps staring.

“Heather said you were talking about accessible veterinary care?” is all she says. Asks. 

“Heather was being generous,” Tanner says, then, when Xiaozhi looks skeptical, “You know I take care of dogs. It’d be kind of pointless for me to try and do that without thinking of the people involved, right?”

He doesn’t know what he says to provoke a reaction, but Xiaozhi does this little sound like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or not. She sounds frustrated, of all things, and her knees are tucked up by her chest and she leans her head on them for a long moment before looking at Tanner almost-despairingly. Searching, almost. 

“What?” Tanner asks, a little wary. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Xiaozhi asks, frank, and it takes Tanner a second to process that, because- what?

“…Excuse me?” he asks, utterly thrown for a loop. 

“I don’t understand,” Xiaozhi says, and the way she’s frowning, Tanner finally understands that it wasn’t a rhetorical insult, she asked it as a real question, ‘what’s wrong with you’ like she’s legitimately wanting an answer. She’s shaking her head, like she’s baffled. “You’re intelligent-”

“I’m not-”

“You are,” she says, and it sounds frustrated. “And kind, and good to Chris, and obviously, you look-” Her cheeks are flushed, just a little, and she gestures abruptly in Tanner’s general direction, like, at his face, like that means anything at all. “Why are you by yourself?” 

Tanner can feel his face burning. “I-” He cuts himself off, thrown by the fact that she apparently thinks he’s all that stuff, smart and kind plus whatever she said about his looks, and he doesn’t know anything at all. “Maybe I want to be,” he says, a little pathetically. 

They both know that it’s a boldfaced lie, and Xiaozhi doesn’t pretend to buy it for even a second. “No you don’t.” 

“You’re really blunt, you know that?” Tanner tells her, a little defensive. “Why are _you_ by yourself?” 

Xiaozhi makes this sound, dismissive. “It’s not the same.” 

“How’s it different?” 

“Because my reasons make sense,” she says, and before Tanner can argue that, ‘cause there’s not a single fucking reason on the planet anyone wouldn’t want her, she continues, “And I try to think of yours, and I can’t.” 

“I’m not-” Tanner starts and stops, and then, “I’m like, a complete fuck-up, in case you haven’t realized. That’s a reason.”

“You aren’t.” 

“I really, really am.” 

“Lots of people have struggled with-”

“It’s not just the drinking thing.” He doesn’t know what makes him be honest instead of shrugging it off with a joke. “It’s- I was engaged before.” 

“Something happened?” 

“Nah, I’ve been secretly married this whole time,” Tanner quips, automatic. It comes out more sarcastic than he’d usually be, and something cowardly rears up inside him, leaves him mumbling some bullshit, “But no, I don’t know. Just didn’t work out.” 

“I see,” is all Xiaozhi says. Tanner’s pretty sure she can tell he’s lying again, but she’s also letting him get away with it this time, and that look is back on her face, the guarded one that she gets when she thinks she’s said too much. Tanner doesn’t- that’s not _them_ , he doesn’t want to be the one to put that look there. 

“She, uh.” He drags a hand through his hair, can’t quite bring himself to meet Xiaozhi’s eyes. Can’t get the rest of the sentence out. 

She just watches, quiet. Waiting.

Tanner breathes out.

“She cheated on me before our wedding,” he says. “With my brother, actually. Very cliché.” The words suck the air out of the room, every fucking time. Not the kind of humiliation that wears off.

“That’s not funny, Tanner,” Xiaozhi scolds. She thinks he’s fucking with her.

Tanner looks at her, wry. 

She gets it fast, then, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh.” 

Tanner laughs, or something close. Doesn’t say anything else. 

There isn’t much else _to_ say, really. He’s- like, he gets it, there’s a reason he mostly sticks to the dogs and hockey when the conversation gets personal, ‘cause the rest of his life is pretty much the ultimate triple threat of conversation enders, except this one maybe even beats out the dead mom and teenage alcoholism stuff, because those parts are sad but not noticing Lindsey going behind his back with his brother for five months, that part’s just pathetic.

“I’m sorry,” Xiaozhi says. 

Tanner shrugs. Thing about baggage is you learn how to stow it up neat, over time. “Garret’s the better option, trust me,” he says, scuffing his toes on the carpet, just sort of rambling. “And, I mean, I’m an alcoholic with abandonment issues, she was way out of my league, anyways. Even though that’s hard to do, since I’m so smart and kind and all. But.” He tries to smooth down his hair again and catches himself halfway through the gesture, digs his fingers into his palm, ‘cause the last thing he needs is a fucking nervous tic. 

“That, uh,” he says. “That time I was joking.” 

“I know,” Xiaozhi says. Tanner’s scared to look at her, scared to see how she’s looking at him. 

“They have a kid now,” he says, just to say something. “Kaitlyn. She’s great.” 

Now, when he chances a glance at Xiaozhi, she looks surprised. “You still speak to him?” 

“He’s my brother,” Tanner says. “He basically raised me, after mom.” It’s the truth. Tanner wasn’t an easy kid and definitely wasn’t an easy teenager, and Garret was only eighteen when things fell apart, but he was the one who drove Tanner to his tournaments, who learned how to cook and made sure Tanner did his homework, who picked him up at three in the morning when he was drunk or high or otherwise fucked up.

Tanner knows for a fact that Garret got into college and didn’t go, and he knows for a fact that that was because of him. 

“I pretty much ruined his life,” he says, half to himself, and Xiaozhi’s shaking her head almost before he’s done speaking. 

“You were a child.” 

“Doesn’t matter,” Tanner says, because it doesn’t, plain and simple, but Xiaozhi doesn’t look like that was a good enough answer.

“It does,” she says. “You feel that you owe him this?” 

“No,” Tanner says, fast. She’s angry on his behalf, almost protective, and it’s foreign enough that Tanner has no idea what to do with it. “Maybe. I don’t know. He’s family.”

“Family isn’t always good,” Xiaozhi says, and it’s Tanner’s turn to feel angry, now, at her parents for kicking a frightened seventeen year old out of their house and making her think shit like that, and then maybe a little frustrated with her as well, for acting like Tanner hasn’t had this conversation with himself a million times, like he doesn’t actively make a choice every time he’s face to face with Garret and Lindsey, because-

“It’s supposed to be,” he says, struggling to keep his voice even and not really succeeding. “Family’s supposed to be a good thing, and a permanent thing, and I want mine to be, and my mom wouldn’t want us all split up. I can’t-” His voice gives out. Tanner’s done every possible disappointing thing, but he’s not going to do that one. 

“I won’t be the one to do that,” he finishes, and Xiaozhi’s looking at him again the same way she did the first time he beat her at chess, the way that makes Tanner want to hide his face and beg her never to stop, all at once.

It’s weird, the silence that follows. Tense. They weren’t arguing, exactly, but they weren’t not, and it’s- Tanner doesn’t do honesty, not when the truth is this ugly, not about this. It’s too easy, with her. 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He leans back into the couch, stares up at the ceiling and tries for a laugh, even though it’s not really funny. “I don’t know why I said all that,” he says. “I don’t talk about this stuff. Half the shit I tell you I don’t talk about.” 

Xiaozhi’s hugging her knees, maybe unconsciously. It makes her look young. “I’m sorry for asking,” she says. 

“No,” Tanner says, fast. That’s not what he meant. He doesn’t know what he meant. “Fuck, you’re allowed. I’d tell you, like-” A _nything_ , he doesn’t finish, and the weird part is he means it, god’s honest truth. 

Tanner drops her gaze; ends up fixating on her stripy ankle socks, the little bit of skin between the sock and the hem of her pants. He doesn’t realize he’s reaching out until he already is, touching the ball of her ankle, barely anything. Touching for touching’s sake, and then – Tanner’s heart skips a beat – Xiaozhi’s hand brushes the back of his, just light, and she doesn’t move away. 

He could count on one hand the number of times they’ve really touched, Tanner realizes, and this time in particular is a very intentional, strangely intimate thing, considering it’s hardly a touch at all. 

“I wish that it didn’t happen to you,” Xiaozhi says, something careful about it. Tanner recognizes his own words. 

“You wish I was married?” It’s a pretty pitiful attempt at a joke, even by Tanner’s dubious standards. 

“Of course not,” Xiaozhi says, and Tanner catches her eye and watches her eyes widen, just a bit, like she’s just then realizing what she said. “Not that I-” 

“I’m just teasing,” Tanner says, and he caves quick, because he doesn’t want her to actually be embarrassed, he knows she didn’t mean it how it sounded, because obviously she didn’t.

“Yes, I know.” 

“I know you do,” Tanner echoes, and he does, is the thing, knows that she meant it the same way he meant it when he said it to her, like _I wish you hadn’t been hurt_ and _I don’t want you to be hurt again_ , like _you matter to me._

Tanner turns his palm under hers so that they overlap, the barest suggestion of holding hands. Her hand’s smaller than his, all four of her fingers curled along the length of one of his, his thumb overlapping with her knuckles.

It’s so, so quiet. Tanner can hear his heart, and they’re both looking at their joined hands and then at each other, and Tanner’s breath catches when their eyes meet. 

He meant what he said, he would tell her anything if she asked, would ask her anything if she’d let him; he wants to gather up the pieces and put them together, learn everything he can about how she went from the girl smiling in the picture to the woman in front of him with her hand in his and her grey and white striped socks and strands of hair falling loose into her face from where it’s tied back. It’s always tied back. 

It occurs to Tanner, dawning on him sunrise-slow, that he must’ve had the wrong idea of beautiful, if he thought he’d seen it before this moment right here. 

“Oh,” he breathes, and Xiaozhi’s eyes flicker down and she shifts, just a little, and Tanner mirrors the movement, ducks his head and leans in closer, closer, and that’s when the front door opens. 

They both jump, startled, springing apart as the house suddenly gets louder, footsteps and noise. Tanner clears his throat, too on-purpose, and then Chris is peering into the living room, his cheeks still red from the cold.

“We came back,” Chris announces, unnecessary, utterly oblivious to what he walked into. Almost walked into.

“Hey, Dr. Chan,” his friend says, trailing him into the room; Tanner meets her eyes, sees the moment she looks at him and recognizes him. Her eyes bug out. 

“Oh, this is Mack,” Chris says, clueless. “Or- Tanner, I guess.”

“Hi there,” Tanner says, maybe a little too fast, scratching at the back of his neck and looking very deliberately anywhere except at Xiaozhi. His heart is _racing._ “Meg, right?” 

Meg nods, wordless, still staring at Tanner, clearly starstruck. It’s a little uncomfortable. Maybe that’s just Tanner.

“No skating?” Xiaozhi asks, and Tanner doesn’t think he’s imagining the way that she sounds a little out of breath as well, firmly on her own side of the couch.

“People kept asking me for pictures,” Chris says, frowning just a little, like this is some odd occurrence and not the rest of his life anytime he steps into a hockey rink. “We were just going to go up to my room and watch the pretournament stuff from juniors instead.” 

The two of them head upstairs, and the hissing of whispers from the staircase carries. 

“You didn’t tell me literal Tanner Mackenzie would be on your couch!” 

“I said my friend was here!” 

“ _Tanner Mackenzie_ , Chris,” Meg says, and Tanner didn’t think he was huge with the teenage girl demographic anymore, it’s usually just older fans and the odd hockey hipster who get excited about him now, but- sure. 

He locks eyes with Xiaozhi, and Tanner doesn’t know if it’s the lingering tension or the fact that Chris’ friend doesn’t know how to talk quietly or some combination of both, doesn’t know which of them breaks first, but then they’re both laughing, this helpless, nervous thing. 

And her laugh, god, her laugh, it’s Tanner’s favourite fucking laugh, Tanner’s favourite anything, the way that it doubles her over so she’s bent in close to him, so Tanner’s nose would touch her cheek if he turned his head, and he doesn’t have a name for the feeling in his chest, startlingly heavy and light at the same time, grounding him here. 

He could reach out and touch her, get a hand in her hair and his lips on hers, and there’s no sound at all except for Xiaozhi laughing and then the noise of Chris’ footsteps thudding upstairs, Tanner’s _teammate’s_ footsteps, he’s in his teammate’s house about to kiss his teammate’s mom and _holy fucking shit_ what the fuck is he thinking.

“I should head back to the hotel,” Tanner blurts, so he won’t do something incredibly stupid. He stands up, too abrupt. 

It takes Xiaozhi a second. “Oh,” she says, clearly taken aback, but she recovers well. “Yes.”

Tanner trades his mug for his Harry Potter book, pretty much bolts out of the living room and grabs his coat from where it’s draped over the bannister. 

Xiaozhi lingers by the doorway of the living room, watching Tanner step into his shoes and looking entirely confused. “You already called a car, or…” 

Tanner shakes his head. “I can walk.”

“To Toronto?”

“To a car,” Tanner says, stupid, because he’ll figure out logistics later, he just needs to get out. “I like walking.” He gets his second shoe on, shrugging into his jacket. “Chris has a way to get to the rink tomorrow?” 

“I can drive him,” Xiaozhi says. Because she lives here. And has a car. Obviously. 

“Oh,” Tanner says. “Right, duh. Sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” Xiaozhi says, and takes a half-step toward him then stops, tentative. “Tanner-” 

“Thank you for dinner,” he says. “I’m sorry again.” 

“For what?” Xiaozhi asks, uncertain, and Tanner digs his nails into his palm so he won’t reach out and- 

“I don’t know,” Tanner says, then, “Bye.” 

He doesn’t wait for her to respond before he flees. 

He makes it down the block and around the corner, out of sight before he stops and catches his breath. It’s freezing out, the snow from before degraded into icy rain, but he just stands there and leans his forehead on a lamp post, trying to steady himself. His heart is still racing.

Fuck. 

“Fuck,” he says.

Fuck, he _likes her._ Tanner likes her so, so much, and has for ages, probably, without even letting himself realize, and he can’t see a scenario where he doesn’t, ‘cause she’s the smartest person he’s ever met, and weirdly aggressive about chess and dorky and kind and doesn’t take it easy on him and- fuck, entirely, cosmically and comically out of his league even if she wasn’t his favourite teammate’s mom, which she is. 

He could’ve kissed her. He almost kissed her.

He’s so, so stupid.

It feels like getting tossed into the boards, this breathless, gut-punch of a feeling that Tanner hasn’t had to deal with in years. He didn’t mean to fall for her, doesn’t know how the hell he was clueless enough to get this far in without realizing. He’s never let himself look at her like that, and for good reason, because he’s so decidedly fucking not allowed to be thinking about Xiaozhi Chan as anything other than a friend. Chris invited him to their home, Chris trusts him enough to like them as friends, and she _is_ Tanner’s friend, she is, except for the fact that it’s taking everything he’s got not to run back and see if he missed his chance to kiss her. 

It hurts, feeling something this big. She hasn’t even done anything to hurt him yet, and it’s there like an open wound begging for salt. 

Tanner stands there with the sleet soaking his hair and he holds onto Xiaozhi’s beat-up old Harry Potter book and he likes her, he _loves_ her, and he’s completely fucking terrified.


	6. Chapter 6

They lose to the Leafs, because fuck the Leafs, and Tanner doesn’t stick around longer than he has to. He knows he’s being avoidant, knows that Chris can tell something’s up, but- like, sue him, it’s not the kind of thing Tanner can just drop into a casual chat, ‘hey, big guy, I’m sort of pathetically in love with your mom’; so he packs his shit, hops on the first flight back to San Jose to get Stacy, then gets on the charter up north.

The temperature’s hovering around zero when he gets to the family house, and he walks through the door and immediately wants to get back in the truck, to pull some romance movie bullshit and get on a plane and show up at Xiaozhi’s door and sweep her off her feet.

He doesn’t. Tanner’s life is a lot of things but it sure as hell isn’t a romance movie, so he just sits down at the kitchen table and doesn’t move at all ‘til Stacy starts hopping around and yapping at the big dogs.

He feels off-balance. Maybe just _off_ in general, because usually being back here is the only time he can really exhale, but now it feels the way it did in summer; worse, even, the walls pressing in all restrictive and echoey and quiet and lonely. Tanner’s too aware of being by himself, tries to distract himself from it by curling up with the dogs to struggle through Xiaozhi’s Harry Potter book. It’s less of a struggle than he thought – he gets sucked into the story, winds up reading ‘til near two in the morning, even has to wipe at his eyes when he reads the part about Harry seeing his parents in the mirror. He’d fold down the corner of the page if Xiaozhi hadn’t already, like the passage got to her as well, and that little folded down corner carves out a space in Tanner’s chest, someplace warm and less alone than the rest of him.

He can’t stop thinking about the other day, even when he tries not to. Can’t stop going over it in his head, the way Xiaozhi smiled at him once it was just the two of them; the way Heather and Vraj kept exchanging glances like they saw what Tanner didn’t, how fucking gone he was over her; the way she said Tanner’s smart and kind and all the other good stuff, words like she was talking about someone else.

He thinks she would have kissed him back, if he’d kissed her.

Christmas Eve drags on and on. He calls the family down in Vancouver, gets a ‘merry Christmas’ from his dad, asks if Katie likes her present, this Lego robotics set, the biggest one the store had. Garret gets on the line right as Tanner’s putting out the fancy holiday food for the dogs.

“You got the card?” Garret asks, and Tanner mumbles a yes. He dumped the card without opening the envelope or even looking at whatever generic message Lindsey wrote, same as every year.

She thought he was a lot of good stuff too, once. Maybe not smart, but funny and kind and at least mostly handsome, even if he drank too much. A bunch of other compliments, too, like she really, truly loved him, enough to get engaged. Tanner believed her. Only found out after that she thought he was needy and exhausting as well, and he believes that stuff, too.

He can’t blame her for picking Garret. Tanner-

Tanner’s thirty-eight and still spends holidays making special easy-to-chew dishes for a bunch of senior dogs. He planned on kids, by now, on having a wife and a family to make a fuss over, and instead he’s back here, he’s always fucking back here and always exactly what he’s always been.

“Still not drinking?” Garret asks before they hang up, because he always asks. Guilty conscience, maybe.

“Not for eleven years,” Tanner says, with an edge. It doesn’t matter – he could’ve said anything vaguely affirmative and gotten checked off Garret’s list, good brother duties fulfilled. He scratches at the countertop. “Dad said he might come up soon. I think he meant it this time.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, kid,” Garret says, and Tanner’s laugh sounds hollow even to his own ears.

He feels guilty at how relieved he is to get out of the house, that night. He leaves Stacy napping cozy on the couch, checks that all the fosters ate their dinner, then gets his coat on and drives the forty minutes to Claudia’s place and then the twenty minutes to the little cemetery where his mom is, along with every other dead person for miles and miles. It’s the only place crowded, out here.

Tanner sets the wreath down, once they’ve parked and navigated the snow-covered path. He crouches to brush the snow off the headstone. Not enough to make that much of a difference. Mostly just to do something.

Claudia stands a little behind him, arms folded. Neither of them speaks. They don’t talk about this, really, even though Tanner knows it can’t be any easier losing a sister than it is losing a mom.

Eventually, Claudia sighs. Doesn’t cry, because they don’t do that, either. “She’d be proud of you.”

Tanner half-laughs. “She’d be proud of me if I worked at a car wash,” he says. It’s the truth. That’s the kind of person his mom was. “That doesn’t mean I did anything good.”

He wants, suddenly and sharply, the way he hasn’t in years, just desperately wants to be able to ask his mom for help. He’s supposed to have outgrown this by now, he thinks, but he just- wants. He wants for his mom to look at him and just know what to do to get rid of the pit in his stomach, that unsettled feeling that hasn’t gone away since he arrived.

He shouldn’t feel like this. It’s the only real home he’s ever had, here, even if dad and Garret don’t seem to think so anymore. He shouldn’t want to move on from that.

Tanner feels Claudia watching him, squeezes his eyes shut.

“I don’t want to be here,” he blurts, and it’s not what he meant to say, but once he starts, he can’t stop. “I- obviously it’s good to see you and mom and the dogs, but it’s like- it saved my life, coming back here, but I just keep coming back, and every year it’s this, I’m here and I’m alone and I just- I want to be-”

He looks down at himself, same winter coat he’s had for years, same old Tanner, still by himself. Still crawling back to the place he grew up while everyone else moves on because he doesn’t know how to be anywhere else.

“Not this,” he finishes, lamely, and he glances back at Aunt Claudia to see if she’s offended or sad, but she just snorts a laugh and stomps over to sit down next to him, the snow crunching under her feet. She’s getting up there in years, but she doesn’t complain about sitting on the ground.

Tanner doesn’t know if he’s supposed to speak first; isn’t expecting what Claudia says when she eventually does.

“You’re exactly like your mom, you know?” Claudia looks thoughtful. “She’d always hold onto things.” She nudges Tanner’s arm, uncharacteristically gentle. “And it’s a good thing, it means you’re good at loving. Only it’s easy for holding on to turn into holding yourself back, and you’re shit at telling the difference, same as her.”

Tanner huffs out a laugh, kind of taken aback, and Claudia’s eyes soften.

“What’s her name?” she asks, and Tanner looks at her, startled. She looks amused, like he just confirmed something for her. “The girl that’s got you like this. Subtlety’s not your strong point.”

“There’s no her,” Tanner says. It feels like a lie.

“But you want to be where she is anyways,” Claudia says; then, knowing and maybe a little bit teasing as well, “Your hair looks good.”

Tanner lifts a hand to his head, self-conscious. He’s been better at it, recently, remembering to shave, actually taking Iggy’s advice and not wearing shit that he’s had since juniors, just generally sort of taking care of himself. It wasn’t like, a concerted effort, he just- he wants to look like the kind of person who gets invited to family dinners and makes a good impression, who can sit at a table with people his age and hold a conversation not about hockey and actually say stuff worth listening to. Xiaozhi deserves someone like that and Tanner wants to be that, wants to be someone who could deserve her, or even come close. He wants to be that so badly.

His mom would’ve really, really liked Xiaozhi, Tanner thinks. Not that- they’re different as anything, looks and personality and general volume, not that much in common at all except for this sense of certainty, this conviction in themselves that Tanner works on and has been working on for years and that still doesn’t come easy to him.

They would have liked each other.

Tanner leans his head on the top of Claudia’s and lets himself miss her, just for a while.

\---

Tanner moves slow, once he’s back at the house. He runs his fingers along the measurements etched into the doorframe back when his brother was taller than him; skips the creaky step halfway up the stairs. He’s been a lot of things here, in this house.

Midway through getting undressed, he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror, the flipped-around words tattooed on his ribs, _god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference._ It was about drinking, when he got it, but now he looks at it and thinks- okay.

Okay.

He sits there on his bed in boxers and woolen socks, holding onto his phone. Tanner thumbs over the little _Your Move!_ notification that’s been there for a couple of days. Finally works up the courage and dials.

He only remembers the time difference once Xiaozhi answers the phone, her voice all blurry, like she just woke up. “Hello?”

Shit.

“I am so sorry,” Tanner says, mortified. It’s got to be close to two in the morning, for her. “You can hang up. Sorry. Shit.”

“Tanner?”

“Sorry,” he says again.

Xiaozhi yawns. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m good.”

The silence stretches out one heartbeat, then two.

“Hi,” Tanner says finally.

“Hi,” Xiaozhi says, real sleepy and quiet and maybe a little bemused, and Tanner can’t tell if the fondness he hears is wishful thinking, but he hears it and it’s like something settles in his chest the way it always seems to, with her, and he just thinks- fuck it.

“Is it okay if I ask you on a date sometime?” he asks. Just asks it, simple like that. “You don’t have to-”

“Yes.”

It takes Tanner a second. He didn’t even finish his sentence. “What?”

“Yes,” Xiaozhi says, not sounding sleepy at all, anymore. “You can ask that. If you want.”

Tanner remembers how to breathe. “Awesome,” he says, only a little bit delayed. “Good. Cool.” He nods, as if she can see him, then, “Do you want to go on a date with me?”

Xiaozhi does this sound somewhere close to a laugh. “Yes,” she says.

“Actually?”

“Yes.”

Tanner’s holding his phone so, so close. “Awesome,” he says again. “One second.”

He mutes the call, sets down his phone, and whoops so loudly that Stacy hops up and starts barking.

“Shh, Stace, sorry, sorry.” He scoops her up, tries to sound calming as he unmutes the call. “Sorry,” he says again, then, “I finished the book.”

If the subject change throws Xiaozhi off, she doesn’t show it. “Harry Potter?”

“Yeah, Harry Potter, how many books d’you think I read?” Tanner needles, gently.

“You read it?” She sounds, like- delighted? Delighted is the word that comes to mind, and it makes Tanner fucking delighted, getting her to sound that way.

“I told you I would!” he chides, laughing up at the ceiling like a total goober, and she’s demanding to know what he thinks, like it’s not some ungodly hour on Christmas morning, and Tanner’s cheeks hurt from smiling, but he still doesn’t stop.


	7. Chapter 7

The thing about not going on a date for years is that, the day of said date, it occurs to Tanner that he doesn’t know what the _fuck_ he’s doing.

He’s sitting on his bed in San Jose, hanging onto Stacy and trying not to spiral into a full-on panic. “What do people even wear on dates?”

Iggy doesn’t even look at him, keeps on rifling through Tanner’s closet and tossing shirts aside with complete ruthlessness. “Why do you own so many t-shirts?” he asks, dismayed. “This brand is _Walmart_.”

“I own suits too,” Tanner says, defensive – why would he buy fancy shirts just to sit around in? – and Iggy just shoots him a dark look and flings another t-shirt at his head. Gameday suits count. They _do_.

A month, Tanner’s had, to get his head around the fact that Xiaozhi agreed to go out with him. It’s been a good month, too, texting and chess and talking on the phone a bunch more, whenever they could make time and the difference or their schedules didn’t fuck them over. There was flirting, he thinks? Tanner was flirting, at least.

He used to be good at flirting. He never used to be this nervous about women, ever. Or- he was, but he was usually not sober enough to dwell on it. Usually not this invested, and certainly not on this many levels, because that’s the thing, is it’s not just himself and Xiaozhi he has to consider.

He brought it up with Chris, after this morning’s practice, when they stayed out to work on faceoffs. “Your mom and I were going to go out for dinner, tonight, the two of us,” Tanner said, this wannabe-casual voice.

Chris hardly even looked up, focused on the puck between them. “Sure,” he said, dismissive, then, “You don’t lean as far forward as a lot of people, is that on purpose, or-”

“I haven’t played centre in a while,” Tanner said, and pressed, “But like, with your mom, listen-”

And Chris looked at him, then, patient, very much ‘you’re fucking with my hockey time but I’m willing to indulge you on this’. “She’s mostly here for work stuff, Mack, and she doesn’t have any allergies, so you probably don’t have to worry so much about dinner.”

Tanner wasn’t sure what work stuff Xiaozhi could possibly have in California, or why Chris’ only concern was potential allergies, because nothing was ever that easy. “I just want to make sure we’re okay,” he said, after a long pause. “You and me, I mean.”

Chris gave a little smile, bemused, and nudged the puck over toward Tanner, a subtle reminder to get back on task. “Why wouldn’t we be?” That easy.

Tanner so badly wants for it to be that easy.

“And you’re still not telling me who she even is, how am I supposed to coordinate?” Iggy is ranting, now, holding up a pair of worn out jeans with utter despair. Like Hamlet with a skull. “You could be hot if you’re just trying, you know, but no, I’m supposed to do miracles here.”

Tanner hides his face in Stacy’s fur. “She’s out of my league, Iggs,” he mumbles, quiet. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to be pathetically gone for someone before the first date. Pretty sure that puts him at a disadvantage.

“Shut up with bad confidence,” Iggy says, which, sure, probably counts as supportive, by his standards. “You are _in_ the league.”

Tanner restrains himself from rolling his eyes. “Not that kind of league,” he says, then, when Iggy slams the closet door and turns to leave, “Where are you going?”

“My closet, for real clothes,” Iggy says, halfway out the door like some sort of soviet fairy godmother. “You drive, old man.”

Tanner drives.

Come seven o’clock, Xiaozhi still hasn’t cancelled, so Tanner accepts the reality that sharing clothes like tween girls in a movie dress-up montage is his life now, makes a couple stops and arrives back at the building with an Iggy-approved button-up and jeans that aren’t threadbare at the knees.

“You got this,” he tells his reflection in the car window. “Garret got the brains, you got the looks, you’re good at this.” It is less than convincing, probably, but he didn’t make the NHL by not being able to self-motivate, so he’s fully prepared to be Charming Tanner, but then he sees movement in the window so he turns around and Xiaozhi steps out the front door and-

“Wow,” Tanner blurts, and it’s not exactly the suave opener he was going for, not exactly anything close, but he feels like he got hit with a truck, for once at a loss for words. “You- wow.”

“It’s just a dress,” Xiaozhi says, maybe a bit of a reflex, and she’s not wrong, is the thing, it’s like, a t-shirt dress, not even formal or anything, but it looks like a million bucks on her and her hair’s down all soft and pretty like going out with Tanner is some kind of special occasion.

“Sorry,” Tanner says; then, helpless, “You look really beautiful.”

“You too,” Xiaozhi says, and now she looks visibly flustered, but her voice is as steady as ever, nearly stern. “Stop saying nice things, I don’t know what to do.”

“Sorry,” Tanner says again, and they’re both so, so bad at this, but he manages to pick his jaw up off the floor enough to remember what he’s supposed to do next. “Here.”

He hands her the flower, a ribbon around its stem. The florist looked like she was laughing at him when Tanner asked for it.

Xiaozhi gets it. Tanner was pretty sure she would. “This is-”

“-an iris,” he finishes. “Like your name means? I thought it was appropriate.” Xiaozhi’s face is doing something complicated, so Tanner rambles on, “Unless that counts as a nice thing, in which case I actually hate it and also you, and your dress sucks.” Stop talking now, Mackenzie.

Xiaozhi smiles, does this little thing where she rises up on her toes then back down, and it pokes at something in Tanner’s heart, makes him forget to be nervous, forget what he was nervous about in the first place. “Good. The feeling is mutual.”

“You also hate my dress, that’s good,” he quips, and he’s smiling too and they could stand there smiling at each other all night, maybe, but Tanner has plans, so he opens the car door for her, this jokey approximation of something formal. “Wanna go?”

It manages to feel familiar, even for how new it is – Tanner can’t remember the last time he went on an actual date, not some pointless hookup or set-up with one of his teammates’ wives’ friends, but he starts the car and Xiaozhi makes fun of him for his country music, and he gets to keep looking at her over in the passenger seat, and he waits to feel nervous again, but he doesn’t, because conversation’s always come pretty easy for them and it does tonight, too.

He thought a lot about where to bring her, ended up reserving the whole patio at this little family-run Italian place. It’s pretty, he thinks, lights strung up everywhere and picnic-style tables with red-checked cloths. Not fancy, but nice. Private.

“This is the best pizza in the city,” Tanner announces once their food arrives, real serious. “I mean it.”

Xiaozhi raises her eyebrows. “You’ve tried every pizza in San Jose?”

“No, I’m a responsible hockey player who respects what the team nutritionists tell him,” Tanner says. “But also, like, yes, I definitely did, but-” He has to break off to laugh as Xiaozhi hits the table, triumphant. “-No, listen to me, you’re wrong about it being a cliché favourite food and you’re going to see that this was for a good cause.”

“The cause is this pizza?”

“This specific pizza, right here tonight,” Tanner says. “Most important pizza in human history, maybe.”

“You are ridiculous,” Xiaozhi informs him, very prim on purpose, but she reaches over the pizza, picking out a slice. “Don’t watch.”

Tanner covers his eyes obediently, but he peeks a second later, sees her chewing with her cheek bulging like a hamster.

“This… is _really_ _good_ pizza,” Xiaozhi says, like she’s startled.

“I know!” Tanner beams, real proud, and digs in.

It’s not like any other first date he’s been on. They’re comfortable with each other, already familiar enough with each other’s lives that it’s more catching up than an awkward interrogation, going through the past few weeks of the season, stuff Chris did growing up, stories about Xiaozhi’s students and coworkers.

“They still haven’t told you if you’re doing summer school again?” Tanner asks, breaking off a piece of his crust. “How’s that fair?”

“The person I was replacing is coming back from maternity leave,” Xiaozhi says, “They know my options are limited.”

“Need me to fight someone?” Tanner offers, straight-faced, and holds back a laugh when Xiaozhi tries to look disapproving.

“We’re not _fighting_ a pregnant anthropologist,” she says, stern, then, “My department administrators, though…”

“I fucking knew it, see, you’re way meaner than me,” Tanner laughs, and he reaches across the table, taps Xiaozhi’s hand. “You know how to throw a punch?”

She laughs, now, a little disbelieving. “Why would I need to know how to punch someone?”

“C’mon, chess team, that’s not even a hockey thing, that’s a life thing,” Tanner says, and he’d tease her more, but she’s toying with Tanner’s fingers, now, this nothing kind of casual touching that makes his heart flutter. He watches her do that for a while, hopelessly fond, watches the way their hands fit together.

They end up palm-to-palm, and when Tanner splays out his fingers against hers, she copies. Her hand looks real small, compared to his.

Tanner breathes a laugh, just quiet, and Xiaozhi’s eyes flicker to his face right away. She doesn’t miss a beat. “What?”

Tanner shakes his head, feels himself smiling like a fucking sap. “We’re doing the thing,” he explains. “The subtly getting to hold hands without either of us having to ask, that thing.”

Xiaozhi sighs, very long-suffering and still entirely bad at pretending to be annoyed. “Do you provide meta commentary on all of your dates?” she asks.

“Why, is it super attractive?” Tanner shoots back without hesitating; then, when Xiaozhi’s fighting a smile, “Don’t even answer, I know it is, my constant excruciating self-awareness is ninety percent of the charm.”

She keeps up. “I was going to say ninety-five.”

“What’s the other five?”

“The hands,” Xiaozhi says, very seriously. “Obviously.”

By the time they leave, Tanner’s face hurts from smiling. They don’t head back to the car right away; instead they walk around, looking at all the stores shutting off their lights and the restaurants and bars turning theirs on. They’re holding hands as they go, fingers laced between them. Tanner likes it a lot, holding hands. It’s not something he’s thought about, really, or consciously missed all those years of being single, but he likes it, how constant it is, how steadying.

It feels like a little loss, at the end of the night, when she lets go of him. Only for a moment, though – they end up sitting on a bench outside the apartment building, pressed close, light shining out from the front doors behind them, the occasional car passing by. Tanner’s absently playing with the hem of her dress, brushing his fingers against her knee every so often. It feels a little bit daring, but comfortable at the same time. Intimate.

“So?” he asks, when the conversation lulls into this cozy kind of quiet, like they’re the only people left in the world.

“So?”

“So how’d I do?” he asks, drumming his fingers on her knee. “Date report card, go.”

Xiaozhi plays along, looks like she’s genuinely considering it before saying, real decisive, “A.”

Tanner raises his eyebrows. “Not A plus?”

She shakes her head, “I don’t give A pluses,” and Tanner groans.

“Oh my god, you’re one of _those_ teachers.”

Xiaozhi looks bemused, leaning in a little. “And what does that mean?”

“Oh, you know _exactly_ what it means,” Tanner chirps, goofy, leaning in to match.

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you do.”

And they’re both bent in close, sort of giggling, and Tanner feels all of sixteen, this dumb, flirty back-and-forth and he likes it so much, how giddy it feels to be falling for someone, to be at the beginning of something good.

“Next date,” he says, quieter. He’s thought about it already – he could take her someplace really fancy, he’ll actually wear a suit some other place than to a game. They could have fun with that, he thinks. “I’ll beat the curve. Promise.”

Xiaozhi’s eyes flicker to his, this little moment of uncertainty like she’s checking to see if he’s joking, and then, when she realizes he’s not, she smiles. “You can try,” is all she says, evenly enough, and she’d maybe pull off the nonchalant thing except that she’s awful at hiding when she’s happy, and she’s happy now, she’s happy at the idea of going out with Tanner again. _Him._ Tanner would walk over broken glass to keep her smiling this much always, and it fills him up inside, that feeling, makes him brave.

He keeps his hand on her leg as he ducks to touch his forehead to hers. Xiaozhi’s hand settles on his wrist, just the lightest touch, holding him in place.

“Can I kiss you?” Tanner asks, and his voice comes out real low, hushed. He feels it more than sees it when Xiaozhi nods. Their noses brush as he leans in, and she meets him halfway, the easiest thing in the world, and the little piece of Tanner that still expects the ground to fall out from under anything good still manages to be surprised when their lips touch.

He kisses her gently, carefully, and it’s like- sweet, which isn’t a word he’d use to describe Xiaozhi, usually, because she’s a lot of things but sweet doesn’t tend to be one of them, but it is now, the way she’s very much letting Tanner set the pace, which he didn’t expect; the way her grip tightens around his wrist as she settles into the kiss and he feels her relax, feels her lean in, eager.

They break off as the front door opens, voices piercing the quiet of the night.

Ken, the doorman, is holding the door as a group of people leave, and he waves when he looks over and meets Tanner’s eyes. “Good night, Tanner, Ms. Chan?” he calls.

Tanner kind of wants to kill him for interrupting this moment. Xiaozhi sighs, leans her head on Tanner’s shoulder, and he rubs his thumb on her knee, _just give it a sec_. “Dr. Chan,” he corrects, first thing’s first, then, because it’s not Ken’s fault he has the worst timing in the world, “We’ll catch up inside, Ken, okay?” It’s a hopefully-friendly and definitely unsubtle-hint that, thank god, Ken takes, retreating back into the foyer with a knowing sort of wink.

Tanner leans his head on Xiaozhi’s, and they sit like that, quiet, just being close, as the voices of the other visitors disappear around the corner.

She kissed him. She let him kiss her, and it was the kind of kiss that feels like it calls for hushed voices and reverence, the kind that Tanner thinks is how kissing is supposed to feel. It’s not something he’s done before, kissing someone who was a friend first, someone who knows him like this. Someone he already loves, and that fact grounds him right in place, because it’s not even- it’s not some abstract romantic idea, love like some lofty thing, he just loves the person she is, loves getting to be around her. Love like matter-of-fact, like of course he does, because it’s her and how could he not.

Xiaozhi draws back, just enough to look at him, and for a long moment, that’s all they do, looking.

“What does this face mean?” she asks, curious, lifting a hand to trace his jaw.

Tanner just shakes his head, bites back a smile. Doesn’t say the love stuff. He’s not going to fuck this up. He’s taking this slow, doing this right, not being too much.

“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing, you, uh- good kissing. That- yeah. Thank you. Solid.”

Fucking nailed it, Mackenzie.

“Solid,” Xiaozhi echoes, same voice she used when she was chirping him for saying ‘bud’.

“Yeah, at least a B plus,” Tanner tries, then, knowing a lost cause when he hears one, or is one, “Shut up.”

Xiaozhi’s laughing as he looks upward to hide his goofy-big smile, and the moment drifts into something more normal, first-kiss tentativeness giving way to kicking at each other’s feet, getting all giggly every time they make eye contact. Tanner kisses her cheek, just quick, before offering a hand to help her up.

They stay holding on through the lobby, the whole elevator ride up. Tanner squeezes her hand once they get to her floor. “I’ll see you after the game?”

Xiaozhi nods, holds on as long as possible before stepping back. “Goodnight,” she says.

“Goodnight,” Tanner says, and he catches a glimpse of her smiling, big and sincere before she turns around and the doors slide shut; and Tanner leans his head against the cool metal, tries to laugh and just ends up sort of breathlessly happy.

 _Night :)_ , he texts her, before he’s even back in his place, and she sends back a matching smile, and Tanner falls asleep holding his phone, all-but-giddy.

\---

Tanner drives in early, on his own, to meet with the rest of the leadership group. Whistles as he waits for the others.

“Why are you smiling?” Iggy asks when he walks in, holding a giant travel mug of coffee.

“What, I can’t smile?” Tanner asks, while, yeah, smiling. He hasn’t been able to stop since the second he woke up and remembered last night was real. His heart feels like it’s full of rainbows and fairies and butterflies, all that nonsense. He’s pretty sure Stacy was laughing at him all morning.

“You win the lottery or something, Mackenzie?” Coach says when _he_ walks in for the meeting, and Tanner resigns himself to the fact that he’s apparently even more shit at hiding his feelings than he thought.

The meeting goes fine. It’s a distraction, and god knows Tanner needs it or he’d spend all day mooning about his date, and he’s grateful that they’ve got a game today, because that’s the best kind of distraction he knows that doesn’t come in a bottle.

Tanner keeps to himself, mostly still on cloud nine, only half-aware of the room slowly filling up as the rest of the team arrives. It’s a divisional matchup, the kind of game that’s important to a playoff fight that looks to be going down to the wire again. He can focus on hockey, for this. He _can._

And then he can’t.

“You kissed my _mother_?”

It shatters the dull noise of the locker room, and Tanner doesn’t even have time to turn around before Chris is hitting him, hard, shoving Tanner right into his stall, without waiting for an answer. He looks furious, the most emotion Tanner’s ever seen from him in front of the guys, in front of this many people at all.

Mikey’s there, then, holding Chris back before he can push Tanner again. Parent reflexes, maybe. “Chris, what are you-”

“Holy shit,” Andy says from a few stalls down, breathless, somehow the first person to put the pieces together. “Mack banged Chris’ mom.”

“Shut the fuck up and have some respect, Andy,” Tanner orders, picking himself up; then, to Chris, placating, trying and already mostly knowing he won’t be able to hang on to the shreds of last night and this morning, “That didn’t happen.”

Chris is in his street clothes, still glaring at him over Mike’s head, practically shouting when he says, “Luka said the doorman said you two were _kissing_ -”

Fucking Ken. Fucking Luka. Tanner winces, his head spinning. It’s not supposed to go like this. “Okay, that part happened, but it wasn’t-”

“How could you do this?” Chris demands, loud, and shakes Mike off like he’s not a two hundred and thirty pound goalie and shoves Tanner again.

This time, Tanner stays upright, but doesn’t hit back, can’t, not against Chris. “You said it was fine!” he says, half-pleading. “You said you liked-”

“That you were _friends,_ you think that means we would ever want you as- _”_

“Enough!” Iggy cuts in, and Tanner barely notices as he wedges himself between them, still reeling.

He took a step back when Chris spoke, a physical reaction to what felt like a punch to the gut. _You think that means we’d ever want you_.

“Listen to me!” Iggy barks, and he’s using his captain voice, pulling himself up to his full height and maximum Russian-ness, and it’s enough to pull Tanner’s attention back, to focus in on the look on Chris’ face. “We don’t do this in the room, Chris.”

“Iggs, fuck off,” Tanner makes himself speak up, he has to, because Chris already looks mortified, getting yelled at by his captain, but Iggy narrows his eyes at Tanner.

“Oh, I’m not yet even starting with you, what the fuck you did, but at least you’re not come in yelling and hitting like this guy-” he wheels on Chris again, “-right before a game that we-”

“Jesus, will you leave him alone?” Tanner snaps, tugging Iggy back. Chris is shrinking in on himself, eyes darting around the room like he’s just now realizing what kind of a scene he made, every careful wall he puts up all gone at once. And Tanner wants to help, to tell the guys to stop staring, but Chris clearly doesn’t want Tanner defending him, either, because he just gives him this look, wide-eyed, of utter betrayal.

“We’re team,” Chris says, and his stutter’s back and that’s somehow worse than the yelling. He sounds _hurt_ , hurt by Tanner. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I am,” Tanner says, desperate. “We are, kid- Chris, c’mon-”

Chris turns on his heel and flees.

All Tanner’s years in the league, he’s never heard a room so quiet.

Tanner clutches at his hair, rough enough to hurt. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says, and leans on his stall with a thud. The dull ache in his head, the heavy stares of every guy in the room, they hardly register. He feels like a piece of shit. He feels like he’s his fucking brother, taking someone’s trust and stomping all over it, and Chris’ voice is echoing in his head, _you think we’d ever want you_ , like it’s the stupidest idea he’s ever heard, because it was, but Tanner _hoped_ ­-

“No one cares that we have a game? You want me to go forfeit so we can stand here more?” Iggy snaps to the room at large, and there’s a general murmur as the guys disperse, back to pregame routines or superstitions, the room slowly filling back up with chatter. Tanner can feel Iggy staring at him – he doesn’t look back – before stomping out to chase down Chris. Tanner’s going to get chewed out later. Probably lucky to get the privilege of it being in private.

He stays where he’s at, head against the wall, until he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“ _Super_ unchill of you to bang Chris’ mom, bro,” Andy says, real somber.

Tanner’s too fucking old for this.

\---

They lose, bad. The embarrassing kind that the tank season still didn’t manage to make guys numb to.

“Chris,” Tanner says, as soon as the final buzzer sounds after the third, and Chris doesn’t even glance at him before shoving past him towards the room. Not a single one of the guys says a word to him, not even Iggy, not after a loss like that.

Tanner shucks off his sweater, boxes himself into his stall and takes out his phone. Xiaozhi beat him to sending a message, _family room_ , and Tanner glances over at Chris, then heads out.

He’s disgusting, probably, still in his sweaty underarmour and pads, but Xiaozhi reaches for him once he arrives, and Tanner half-hugs her, quick. He doesn’t have to ask if she knows about Chris, once he sees the look on her face.

“I’m so sorry,” Tanner says, right away, as they draw back. “If I thought he’d- I would’ve-”

“I know,” Xiaozhi says, and she looks like she wants to say more, but Em and the kids are on the other side of the room waiting for Mikey, and Tanner can feel them watching curiously, knows the rest of the team could walk in at any second.

“Here, let’s-” He gets a hand on Xiaozhi’s back, just for a moment, to nudge her toward the door, and then he leads them down hallways, the drafty cement of the arena, to get to someplace more private. He feels vaguely nauseous the whole time, even having her next to him – the game was a shitshow in its own right, but it was an excuse not to think about what happened, and now that Tanner doesn’t have that excuse, it’s been replaced with guilt, pebbled hard and heavy in his gut. This is his fault. He knows Chris takes a little longer with picking up on some stuff, and that’s on Tanner because he _knew_ that, he should’ve done better, should’ve thought through it more before putting them all in this position.

“I’ll talk to him,” he promises, the second they come to a stop by a stack of old boxes. “Before- next time, I’ll talk to him, we’ll figure it out.”

And he says it and means it, right, hurt but not hopeless, only Xiaozhi doesn’t say anything, just looks at him and opens her mouth then closes it before saying anything. She bites her lip, hard, and Tanner has that feeling, the one he got when Garret and Lindsey sat him down before his bachelor party to talk, or when his mom got home from her doctor’s appointment and said she had to tell them something, and just like that, he just knows.

“We’re not gonna do it again, huh?” he says, quiet, and Xiaozhi looks down.

“I want to,” she says, but she doesn’t correct him.

Tanner can’t help the way his breath leaves him like a gut punch. He tugs his sleeves down over his knuckles, for something to do with his hands, feels Xiaozhi watching him.

It’s an infinity before she speaks.

“Christopher loves you,” she says. “I was so worried for him living here, but you have helped him-” she breaks off, shaking her head, searching for the word, “-immeasurably, Tanner, with so much.” She says it emphatically, _meaningfully_ , and then Tanner finally meets her eyes and it’s all he can do not to reach out to her, because she looks heartbroken. “How can I justify risking the stability of that for him?”

“Why is it a risk?” Tanner asks, surprising himself with how normal he sounds. “I’m not-”

“He had a panic attack in the living room this morning because he thinks two of the only people he trusts are no longer trustworthy,” Xiaozhi interrupts, pained. “How would a change like this not absolutely destabilize-”

“I’ll talk to him,” Tanner says again, earnest. “I’ll explain-”

“Then what?” Xiaozhi cuts him off again, like she’s thought this out already, because she probably has. “We fix this, then I leave tomorrow for the rest of the semester and you and I attempt to start a relationship while I live in a different time zone and I see you and my son twice a year, how would that even work?”

“That was true yesterday too, why-”

“You saw how he reacted to uncertainty when things are good, what if you and I have a fight or a bad breakup, then my son loses his-”

“You don’t think I love Chris too?” Tanner asks, interrupting her, now, hurt and trying not to be, because he doesn’t know what she thinks this is, for him, but it isn’t some whim, he wouldn’t risk the two most important people to him on a whim. “He’s not going to lose me, how can you think I’d ever-”

“I _have_ to think,” Xiaozhi says, sharper than before, and there’s more panic than Tanner’s heard in her voice before, some always-there restraint fraying at the seams. “I have to think realistically and not be caught up in what I want-”

“What’s wrong with having what you want?” Tanner demands, and it’s the wrong thing to say, he knows it as soon as it’s out, from the look on Xiaozhi’s face.

“It is not about what I want,” she snaps, loud, and it echoes in the hallway and right through to Tanner’s heart.

And he’s not entirely surprised, is the thing, because everything he knows about Xiaozhi Chan, as a parent and as a person, is rooted in making the smart choice, in not making the same mistakes she’s made before. And Tanner gets that he- fuck, he knows mistakes, he lives with his every day of his life, and he gets that it could be a reckless thing, dating her kid’s teammate who lives as far as he could possibly live while still being on the same continent, but- but that’s the _point_ , is that Tanner knows mistakes and this doesn’t feel like one. It feels the opposite, more right than anything he’s ever had. Not right like easy, which is what he always thought it meant, right like the kind of challenging he wants more of, pushing him and making him want to be better and somehow completely himself at the same time.

There’s no scenario where Tanner suddenly starts hating Chris because he and Xiaozhi break up, no scenario where he can see himself wanting to break up in the first place. She’s scared for her kid and it’s obvious, and Tanner wants to reach out, but he can’t- he doesn’t know what to say to change her mind, because they went on one date, if he says half of the shit he’s feeling he’s going to scare her away, because he doesn’t know how to care about people normal, without letting them take up space in him.

“Do I have a shot at convincing you, here?” is what he asks, and Xiaozhi looks stricken.

“Tanner,” she says, and Tanner shakes his head, keeps talking, tries to say enough without being too much.

“Because you’re like, amazing, and that’s- I don’t know how to say it in better words, I just- I like you so much, I don’t-”

She kisses him, then, a hand on either side of his face pulling him to her, and anything else Tanner was going to say disappears against her lips.

It takes him a second to kiss back, but he does, he _does_ , his hand hovering at her hip before he gets up the nerve to hold onto her properly, and it’s a little bit unpracticed, clumsy and too urgent and Tanner too big and probably disgusting in his sweaty pads and under armour, but he lets her hold onto him, lets her kiss him how she wants to.

Xiaozhi’s breath shakes when they break off, and she doesn’t pull back, just stays close, her eyes still shut. Tanner tries to catch his breath, can’t manage it.

 _I love you_ , he doesn’t say.

He reaches up and tucks Xiaozhi’s hair behind her ear, so, so carefully.

“Just try,” he says, and it comes out low like a whisper, almost pleading, because he never had a whole lot of dignity anyway.

He sits there for a long time, after she leaves. Only gets up when some of the sounds of people in the distance start sounding closer, and he shouldn’t- he can’t deal with people, like this, can’t be friendly Tanner, so he drags himself to his feet and back to the locker room, long since emptied of all his teammates.

He showers and gets dressed in his gameday suit, doesn’t think a single coherent thought the whole time. This morning feels like it was a hundred years ago, a thousand.

Tanner ignores Ken once he’s back at the building, and feels bad about it after, but doesn’t turn back, just gets back into his apartment and kicks his shoes off, starts tugging at his shirt before he’s even in his room. Too hard; one of the buttons rips right off.

It’s one of the ones he borrowed from Iggy. Feels like a fucking joke now, a kid playing dress up, like a nice shirt was enough to make him not what he is, the asshole who falls too hard and too fast and gets left like it’s his job. He wads up the shirt and flings it into the corner. He’ll buy Iggy a new one, he’ll buy him ten, he doesn’t care.

Fuck, Tanner wishes he didn’t care.

He hits his head on the headboard when he tries to lie down on his bed. Because sure, why not.

Stacy’s slow climbing up her steps, but she gets there eventually, pads up the bed and noses at Tanner’s head, makes this little whiny sound, all concerned.

“Hey,” Tanner says, trying to sound upbeat. “Hey, don’t worry.” He scratches her head, fluffs up the fur there.

“You and me, baby,” he says, and Stacy licks his nose, and the weight of it is suddenly suffocating, how miserably fucking pathetic he is, a thirty-eight year old man talking to his arthritic lapdog.

He lays back, presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, and tries to get a grip.

He should’ve seen this coming, probably. One of those too good to be true things. He just- it’s not like Tanner’s any kind of catch or ever has been really, and he knows that, but, fuck, he could’ve stood being caught, just this once.


	8. Chapter 8

The good news is that Chris is good enough at hockey that him hating his left winger doesn’t stop them from winning their next game, or the next two after that. The bad news is-

Yeah.

Tanner thinks management might be regretting the whole ‘veteran leadership’ thing, because the thing about signing someone to be good in the room is that it sort of requires the room not thinking that he’s the worst teammate on the planet. Half the guys act like Tanner’s got the plague for a week, and he doesn’t even get a chance to be relieved when they start talking to him again, because it mostly comes in the form of extremely in-poor-taste jokes about keeping him away from their mothers, like this whole thing was some kind of fucked-up fetish. Tanner tries to be grateful that it’s just the idiots in the room instead of the press, that it’s him dealing with the jokes instead of Chris too. He only manages sometimes.

The boys leave Chris alone about it. Chris doesn’t give them much choice. Tanner didn’t realize how much Chris spoke to him his rookie year, even before they became friends, until Chris completely cuts him off and Tanner sees the guy that gets articles written about how stoic and unsmiling he is for the first time. He doesn’t know how Chris gets to and from the arena, because the carpool thing is a thing of the past, but Chris shows up, plays hockey, and leaves, sometimes without saying a single word outside of liney talk.

“Don’t be mad at your mom,” Tanner tries, once, when they’re all standing around on the ice after practice, the goalies lingering for a couple of guys taking shots.

“You don’t talk about her,” Chris retorts, stony-faced, and turns his back without another word.

“You are really helping him come out of his shell, Mack,” Iggy says, dry, as they watch Chris skate off. “I admit, I’m originally skeptical about this master plan, but-”

“Genuinely, eat shit, Stefan,” Tanner says, weary, and Iggs calls him something probably-not-nice in Russian for first-naming him, but he’s also the only person acting even remotely normal, so Tanner’s absurdly grateful for him anyways.

He’s lonely.

He didn’t feel this lonely, before, or at least wasn’t aware of it. Didn’t realize how much both Chans had integrated themselves into his life until they’re mostly gone from it, and then Tanner’s driving to and from the rink by himself, back to playing chess against the computer and reading articles about inspirational vet stories while he eats dinners for one. It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid; knows that he was fooling himself, hoarding moments of something that he couldn’t have, because Xiaozhi and Chris are a family but they’re not his. It’s Tanner’s own fault for wanting too much, for convincing himself that he could have it, all because she- what, talked to him on the phone? Agreed to go for dinner when he called her at three in the morning? Because his eighteen-year-old coworker needed to get a phone number for a responsible adult and Tanner was the most convenient person available?

He remembers-

It’s one of those things he’s not supposed to think about. One of those things that got engraved into Tanner’s memory anyways, Lindsey sitting there with Garret’s hand on the small of her back. She let him do most of the talking, when they told Tanner about the two of them, but she burst out, once, cutting jagged and mean like Tanner had never seen her or had maybe just ignored, “You don’t get it, Tanner, how needy you are, it’s exhausting!”

Tanner remembers every single detail of that moment. He remembers the colour of the fucking curtains.

He doesn’t mean to be exhausting. He knows he was, when he was a spoiled twenty-one-year-old who had to drink to be likeable and was determined to fall for the first girl he really dated. He gets that. Gets that it was an unfair thing to expect from Lindsey, to sign up for that for life, and that forget taking Tanner’s girl, Garret could stab Tanner a dozen times in the gut and twist the knife and they still wouldn’t be even for everything Tanner owes him. And- and Tanner’s better now, personally, better in a way he doesn’t know if he would’ve been without that wakeup call.

He still remembers Lindsey saying that. Still feels that knife twist.

Exhausting and needy might not be the kind of things a guy can grow out of. Once an addict, always an addict, maybe.

Tanner’s phone stays silent, and he does his job. Tanner scores two against the Ducks, goes o-for in the shootout against the Flames. Tanner goes between the rink and the car and the team plane, drinks his cup of coffee on flights then plays chess with his earplugs in. Tanner approves more funding for the vet visits back home.

Tanner wants a fucking drink. He doesn’t have one, obviously, ‘cause he hasn’t in eleven years and he’s not starting now, but he looks up a list of where meetings are happening tonight, just in case it gets worse, and then he rolls over and hugs Stacy to his chest.

“Hi, puppy,” he says into her fur, and she hasn’t been a puppy in a decade, but she stays cuddled up close all the same.

\---

It’s February hockey, the kind where teams are getting desperate and a wild card spot starts feeling like a ticking time bomb.

Tanner should see it coming – Panthers lost the first few games of their West Coast swing and are trying to redeem themselves, the game’s chippy from the start – but he doesn’t.

What he does see is that Fish has the puck in the corner and he’s got both d-men on him, and Tanner’s racing down the ice to help but Chris gets there first, down by the net. Chris hits his stick on the ice, calling for the pass, and Fish hears it but evidently the Panthers do too, because the puck’s hardly on Chris’ tape before Evans is barreling into him knee first, sending Chris buckling down. Chris cries out when he crashes against the post and goes skidding into the boards, audible even over the crowd.

Tanner’s been on a real nice stretch without dropping the gloves, ever since Xiaozhi told him she doesn’t like it, but he’s in Evans’ face before he even makes the conscious decision to hit him, feels Evans’ nose break and doesn’t even feel bad.

“What kind of a fucking play was that, you dirty fu-” Tanner starts, and gets cut off by Evans composing himself enough to throw a punch in return, and by that time Fish and the rest of the team are on them as well, the kind of brawling that only happens when someone gets for-real hurt.

Tanner gets tossed from the game. He figured.

Blood looks bad on teal jerseys. It’s a thing Tanner never had to think about before signing here, but it does, all brownish and ugly. The doctor mops his face up but doesn’t bother with the sweater, so Tanner can still smell his own blood over the sanitizer smell of the med office. It’s not as full as it would usually be, half the staff accompanying Chris to the hospital after he got stretchered off.

“Chris’ leg broke,” Tanner says, a question, and Dr. Sanchez nods.

“Badly,” she says, and Tanner curses, because that’s Chris’ season, that’s _everyone’s_ season, and he knows Chris well enough to know he’ll blame himself for that.

It’s a familiar song and dance: Tanner gets concussion protocol and then ten stitches, cutting across his brow and making it hurt to blink. By the time he looks in a mirror, his right eye is swollen most of the way shut.

He winces through getting dressed, doesn’t bother sticking around to watch the rest of the team get the news about Chris. He just wants to go home, wants to chalk this night up to all the others he wishes never happened, only someone calls his name once he’s in the hall.

“Tanner,” they say, and Tanner looks over to see Luka scurrying over from the families’ room, looking completely petrified. “Tanner, is he okay?”

“They’re taking him to the hospital to do some scans,” Tanner says. Maybe a little less warm than he’d usually be. Sue him. “Maybe surgery, if it’s bad.”

Luka looks like he’s about to cry. They showed Chris getting hurt about ten times, up on the big screen, all slow-motion detail. Shitty thing to see of anyone, especially of your boyfriend, especially if you never have before. “Can you drive me there?” he asks. “Please?”

And- fuck, he looks exactly as young as he is, and any shred of Tanner that was annoyed with him for breaking the kissing thing to Chris before Tanner could do it properly dissolves into pity, so he ends up being chauffer for yet another twenty-year-old, directions to the hospital in his GPS.

He doesn’t make conversation, in the car. Tanner has to keep looking over his shoulder what with his fucked-up eye, which is probably bad if he gets pulled over, but he doesn’t, so- great. Small graces.

He should probably expect Luka to break the silence. Tanner doesn’t really know him, not like he knows Chris, but he knows enough to know that the kid knows how to talk.

“I didn’t mean for Chris to get mad at you, about his mom,” is what Luka says, quiet enough that Tanner has to glance over at him to make sure he really said it. He’s sunken down in his seat, eyes red, playing with his seatbelt.

Tanner bites back a response, because he doesn’t think it’d be a particularly nice one. Luka keeps talking anyways, real fast and almost guiltily, like he’s been keeping it bottled up.

“I didn’t even- like, I just mentioned it in passing ‘cause I thought it was funny how nosy Ken always is, ‘cause I thought Chris already knew. I just assumed you would have told him already, about you and his mom, before or something.” He feels Luka looking over at him, hesitant. “How come you didn’t?”

Tanner keeps his eyes on the road. Doesn’t mean to make his grip tighten on the steering wheel, but it does, anyways, and he has to swallow before he speaks.

“I thought he was okay with it,” he says. It sounds hollow, like he’s trying to bullshit, even to him. He’s not. He wouldn’t. He just- Tanner goes back to that night in New York, the way he’s kept doing ever since things went to shit, the way Chris said _Mom smiles a lot when you’re around_ , the way he shook his head when Tanner asked if it was weird.

It’s Tanner’s fault. He misunderstood, if he’s being generous, let himself not think about how Chris needs things explained different sometimes; or maybe just interpreted Chris the way he wanted to, some dumbass rose-coloured-glasses idea in his head that maybe Chris would be happy about it, which, yeah, no one’s ever accused Tanner of being a genius. He just thought-

“I just thought it’d be fine,” he finishes, and he still doesn’t look at Luka because he doesn’t need to see scorn or pity or whatever look would be on his face. Luka doesn’t say anything else, not the rest of the drive and not when Tanner finally pulls in in front of the hospital.

He forces himself to loosen his grip on the wheel.

“Go find him,” Tanner says, not unkind. “I’ll park.”

He waits for Luka to leave; exhales in a puff and then forces himself to calm down and head for the parking garage. It’s a mess, tons of cars coming and going, but he gets parked and heads inside.

Tanner figures he’s the de-facto responsible adult here, which is about as dire straits as it gets, but also kind of what he signed up for, so he plants himself in the waiting room and digs out his phone to call Xiaozhi. He’s assuming she’ll already know, is mostly planning to help figure out a flight or something, but there’s no answer once he dials, just her voicemail telling him that he’s reached Dr. Joanne Chan, and to please leave a message.

He tries a couple more times before giving up and texting instead, just whatever facts he has, what hospital they’re at, and then, after more thought, _don’t watch video it looks worse than it is._

It’s a while before anyone Tanner recognizes emerges. A couple of the team docs first, then Luka, who makes a beeline straight for Tanner.

“They’re going to bring him into surgery to fix it so it doesn’t heal wrong,” he says, before Tanner can ask.

Tanner nods – not better than he expected, but not significantly worse, either, a few screws never hurt anyone – and asks, holding up his phone, “You know where Xiaozhi is?”

“Um,” Luka thinks about it. “She was at some conference, I don’t…”

So, great, she could be anywhere, working or teaching or whatever people do at academic conferences. She doesn’t check her phone at work, either, which means there’s a non-zero chance of her finding out secondhand about her son getting stretchered off the ice, which is exactly the opposite of what she needs.

“Thank you for driving me,” Luka says, hands in his pockets. He looks up at Tanner, serious. “I’ll tell Chris you-”

“Don’t,” Tanner cuts him off, because that’s not what this was for, and Luka just nods, shrinking in on himself, clearly still rattled by Chris getting hurt or the team doctors swooping in and ordering everyone around or having to navigate the hellhole that is the American health care system or all of the above.

And it’s not like Tanner can just _leave_ the kid.

“C’mon,” he says, resigned. “Let’s go find seats.”

\---

The crowd in the waiting room has thinned out, a little, people mostly avoiding grievous bodily harm at god knows what time in the morning on a weekday, so Tanner sees Xiaozhi right as she comes through the door.

He stands when he sees her, automatic, and she heads straight for him. Her hair is falling out from its bun.

Luka sits up in his seat – Tanner thought he was still asleep – and, when Xiaozhi gets close, hugs her without saying anything. She lets him, smooths back his hair the way Tanner’s seen her do before with Chris, this protective sort of thing.

“Are you alright?” she asks, matter-of-fact; then, when Luka nods, she disentangles herself from him and turns to Tanner, eyes wild even as her voice is steady. “Where is Chris?”

“They’re fixing him up now,” Tanner says, and he tries to sound calm because he’s never seen her this worried, is a little unsettled by it. “Should be almost done with surgery.” Xiaozhi makes this little sound, covers her mouth with her hand, and Tanner’s heart aches.

“Hey,” he says, firm. “Hey, he’s fine. This isn’t dangerous.”

Xiaozhi just nods. As close as she gets to breaking down, Tanner realizes, and she looks fucking terrified for her kid and Tanner doesn’t know what else to do so he just tugs her into a hug; knows he made the right call when Xiaozhi holds onto him, stays tucked up against his chest. She’s hiding, he thinks, collecting herself with people around, and Tanner- if that’s what she needs, he’ll be that, now, so he just keeps his arms around her and tries not to think about Chris curled up on the ice, his face contorted with pain. He’s not Tanner’s rookie anymore, technically, and he’d still hate Tanner now even if he was, but fuck, he’s just a kid, and he’ll never not be Tanner’s rookie, hate him or not. Tanner’s supposed to keep him safe, out there.

“He’s fine,” is all Tanner says again, instead of dwelling, because this isn’t about him, now. He presses a kiss to the top of Xiaozhi’s head, some instinctive attempt at being comforting, and it must work, because he feels her exhale, shaky against his breastbone.

He doesn’t know how long they stand there like that. Until Luka coughs, pointed, and then Tanner pulls back at the same time that Xiaozhi does. He can feel himself blushing, shoves a hand in his pocket, embarrassed.

“Your face,” Xiaozhi says, quiet.

“What?” Tanner asks, genuinely confused, then- “Oh, this?” He raises his eyebrow – ow, fucking _ow,_ stitches, bad idea – and drags a hand through his hair, self-conscious. “Yeah, y’know. Just when we thought I couldn’t get any more handsome.”

He would love, just once, for his idiot mouth to not say words without checking in with his brain first.

“I’m going to go get us snacks,” he says, world’s worst and least subtle cover-up. The Tanner Mackenzie classic. “You want anything?”

Xiaozhi shakes her head. “No, thank you,” she says, and it looks like she might be about to say something else, but Tanner doesn’t stay to find out.

There’s a background track of hushed conversations and slow, rhythmic beeps when he finds a vending machine. Soundtrack to some of his earliest memories. He hates hospitals, the sameness of them all.

Tanner makes eye contact with his reflection in the vending machine glass, looks over at the stitches, ugly and black across his brow, at the way his eye is bruised purple and swollen. Xiaozhi hates fighting. Couldn’t have missed the signs of this one, hell, Tanner practically threw them in her face. Even aside from the stitches – he’s got a post-five o’clock shadow, and his hair’s on the shaggy side again, and his gameday suit is wrinkled from being crammed into a stiff-backed chair for hours.

Yeah, a fucking catch.

“You’re an idiot, Mackenzie,” Tanner tells himself, very firm, and then he punches in numbers, buys one of everything, because he figures they’re going to be here a while.

\---

The first thing Chris says as he wakes up, ages later, is, “Mom?”

Xiaozhi smooths back his hair, such a tender thing that it sort of makes Tanner want to cry. “I’m here,” she says, and Chris relaxes.

“I can’t feel my brain,” he says, yawning. “How much drugs did they give me?”

“So much drugs,” Luka says, and Chris smiles big at the sound of his voice.

“Hi, Lukey,” he says, and laughs when Luka peppers his face with kisses. Tanner doesn’t envy Chris how it’s going to feel when the painkillers start wearing off, how he’s going to be beating himself up at ending his season like this, but he figures there are worse ways to wake up.

Chris is looking around over Luka’s shoulder, blinking, clearly still disoriented. Waking up in a hospital with your leg immobilized tends to do that to you.

Tanner refrains from shrinking back against the wall when Chris meets his eyes. Barely. He shouldn’t have stayed.

Chris frowns.

“Did we win?” he asks. It’s the first thing he’s said to Tanner outside of practice or games in a month.

Xiaozhi and Luka exchange an incredulous look, but Tanner- he gets it, and he can’t not relax for the first time since the rink. The kid’s fine. He’ll get back to hating Tanner sooner rather than later, but he’s already worrying about hockey. He’s fine.

Tanner nods. “Yeah, bud,” he says. “We won.”

\---

Tanner’s leg falls asleep first, then his arm, because hospital chairs definitely aren’t designed for ergonomics and especially not for people who just played sixty minutes of hockey, but he doesn’t move: Xiaozhi passed out on his shoulder over an hour ago, and like fuck is he going to be the one to wake her after the night she had, leaving mid-event at her conference and getting on the first flight from Colorado.

The conversations in hushed voices to avoid waking her turn into mildly awkward silence once Luka has to leave for class, squeezing Chris’ hand and making him promise to text with updates. Tanner would leave, give Chris some privacy or at least not force him to be in his company, but Xiaozhi’s all curled up and looks relaxed for the first time since she got here, so-

Here they are.

But dear god, Tanner’s bad at silence, mildly awkward or otherwise. It makes him antsy. Doesn’t help that Chris keeps his arms folded, alternating between staring sullenly at the bedsheets or at the ceiling.

It’s a relief when a nurse comes in with an update, or at least a welcome distraction. She clearly doesn’t know a thing about hockey or who Chris is, but it’s nice, professional as opposed to the poorly-concealed fandom they get sometimes.

“One of your team physicians is coming in to sign off on a treatment plan, and he wants one more x-ray,“ the nurse is saying to Chris, glancing down at some chart. “But assuming all goes well, we’ll give mom and dad the instructions for your painkillers and we should be able to get you out of here sooner rather than later.”

It takes Tanner and Chris both about the same amount of time to realize that Tanner is dad, in this scenario – it’s not like it’s a bad assumption, because the woman that Chris has been calling mom is currently napping on Tanner’s shoulder and Tanner’s been here for going on fourteen hours straight, but _still_ – and then they’re both speaking at once, practically tripping over themselves to correct her.

“Oh, I’m not his-”

“He isn’t my-”

Tanner accidentally meets Chris’ eyes, and they both clam up, mortified, while the nurse apologizes and excuses herself.

Now. _Now_ the silence is awkward.

A stretcher rolls by in the hall outside, voices chattering softly.

“I don’t even look white,” Chris mumbles, and Tanner snorts a laugh, more from surprise that Chris is speaking to him than from anything else, and he wants to say something else, to make things normal again, but nothing comes out.

It’s Chris who breaks the silence, again. Who’d have thought.

“I talked with Luka,” is what he says, all quiet. He’s not meeting Tanner’s eyes, just playing with a loose thread on his hospital gown. “He said I’m being possessive.”

“Protective,” Tanner says.

“They’re not that different.”

“They are,” Tanner says, and Chris actually looks at him, just quick, before staring back down. “One’s being an asshole. You’re not.”

Chris has never looked more like the little kid in the picture at his house. “You don’t have to be nice to me,” he says, like he’s embarrassed. “I tried to fight you.”

They have very different ideas of what constitutes a fight. “I deserved it,” Tanner says. “I should’ve talked about it with you.”

Chris shrugs stiffly. “You thought you did.”

“Should’ve talked about it better.” Tanner doesn’t take the out, and this time he waits for Chris to meet his gaze and hold it. “I’m sorry. Really.”

Chris chews his lip, looks like he’s working up the nerve to speak. “Is that why you hung out with me?” he asks eventually, real fast and not half as casually as he probably tries to. “Because you liked her, is that-”

“No,” Tanner says straight away. “Is that what you thought?”

Chris shrugs again, which means yes.

“I’m your friend because I want to be,” Tanner says, truthful. “I was your friend before I even knew her. I thought she was kind of scary until like, a year ago.”

“But you don’t now?”

Tanner tilts his head. “Only sometimes,” he says, and Chris rewards his tentative smile with a half-smile of his own, reluctant but real, and it’s like a tangible weight off of Tanner’s shoulders.

Chris shifts where he’s sitting, the air lighter a shade at a time. “You guys aren’t…”

“No,” Tanner says again, fast, and talks around the sudden pang in his chest at the topic. “No, it was just the one date, I promise I would’ve said more otherwise.”

“Why?” Chris asks, looking at Tanner real intently. “Why just one?”

Tanner’s not about to throw Xiaozhi under the bus to her kid, so he just shakes his head, hedges, “It doesn’t really matter, Chris-”

He shouldn’t have bothered; Chris’ lips tighten like Tanner just confirmed it for him. He’s smarter than people give him credit for. “She stopped dating you because of me, right?”

Tanner’s speaking almost before Chris is done. “Not just you,” he says. “It’s not on you, she lives in a different country, she’s got a lot on her plate. It’s not a smart way to start a relationship.”

“You think that?” Chris asks, already knowing the answer, and Tanner must hesitate a split second too long, because Chris slumps back into his cushions, deflated.

“Chris,” Tanner says, because the kid looks like he’s on the verge of tears, and Chris just shakes his head.

“She almost didn’t finish her PhD,” Chris says. “Because she was worried about not making enough money and I wouldn’t be able to go to tournaments, and she never ever dated, my whole life, because I’m bad at meeting people. She does everything for me, and now-”

“You don’t get to feel bad about that,” Tanner says, firm, looking Chris square on, because he knows a guilty kid when he hears one, because he _was_ one; knows what he needed to hear and didn’t. “Hey. Parents decide what they want to do. They make their choices. That’s never going to be on you.”

He doesn’t mean to move when he speaks, but he must, because Xiaozhi stirs, makes this little sound in her sleep and presses closer into Tanner’s arm as her eyes flutter. Tanner shuts his mouth and stays still so he won’t disturb her. She looks as peaceful as he’s ever seen her, the faint worry lines on her brow smoothed out. It’s a piece of her Tanner didn’t think he’d get to see.

He makes himself stop staring. Only belatedly remembers they aren’t alone; looks up and finds Chris already looking back. Tanner doesn’t know what Chris is seeing or thinks he is, but whatever it is, it puts this look on his face, like- resigned. Resolved.

“If she wants to date someone,” Chris says, slow. “I guess it’s okay that it’s you.”

“Chris,” Tanner says, and this time it comes out a little weakly, stunned, because he wasn’t expecting that, but Chris just shakes his head.

“You fit with us,” is all he says, and Tanner lets out a breath, kind of overwhelmed. He doesn’t have words. Turns out he doesn’t really need them: Chris reaches out across the space between his bed and Tanner’s chair, offers his fist like it’s a real solemn gesture.

Tanner reaches out with his free arm and bumps their knuckles together.

“Cool,” Chris says.

“Cool,” Tanner says, and yeah, he’s okay without words, for now.


	9. Chapter 9

Tanner’s got moving on down to a science, by now.

The team’s down without Chris, but having someone to win for lights a fire under them, the way it tends to do. Lots of season left, so that’s what Tanner focuses on, that and patching things up with Chris. It’s slow going. Tentative, like things shouldn’t be able to be so the same and so different all at once.

He gives Iggy back all the nice clothes he’s borrowed over the last couple months, a folded stack of overpriced sweaters and shirts with actual collars that still didn’t manage to make Tanner less Tanner.

“Thanks,” he says anyways, and Iggy looks down at the clothes, then glares at Tanner.

“You are _not_ going back to bad t-shirts,” he orders. “I will kill you.” That part’s a joke. Probably a joke?

Tanner sighs. “It doesn’t matter, man-”

“It matters,” Iggy cuts him off and shoves the pile of shirts back into Tanner’s arms. “You keep these.”

“Iggs,” Tanner says. “I don’t need-”

“Everyone _needs_ ,” Iggy scolds, and Tanner opens his mouth to protest again, but Iggy shakes his head, stubborn.

“It’s fair, you know?” he says. “You show me how to be captain, I show you how to dress not like teenager.”

“I didn’t show you how to be captain,” Tanner says, because Iggy was on the Sharks before Tanner got here, but Iggy just rolls his eyes.

“I say nice thing, you fucking believe me, okay, old man?”

He’s all bluster, Iggy, same as he’s always been. Leading them to the playoffs too, though, and upping his game with Chris out, inspiring the rest of the guys to do the same. He’s a good captain. Tanner knew he would be. A good friend, too.

Tanner doesn’t say any of that nice stuff to his face. That’s not really how they work. “Is calling me ‘old man’ part of the being nice, or-”

Iggy slugs him in the arm, smiling. “No bad t-shirts,” he orders, so- fine. No bad t-shirts.

It’s easy enough for Tanner’s life to fall into some kind of pattern, mostly the same one that it’s had for years, with the exception of him being slightly better dressed. It does feel nice, even if he won’t admit it. Even if it doesn’t actually matter. No one to impress anymore but himself.

Slowly, then all at once, the guys are talking to him again, joking like normal. No one asks about Xiaozhi.

Tanner’s driving Chris to physio on an off day in early March when Chris turns down the radio and looks at Tanner expectantly.

“Oh, boy,” Tanner says.

 _Almost_ no one.

“Why haven’t you said anything to my mom?” Chris asks. “I said it was okay.”

“I appreciate it,” Tanner says, honest. He keeps his eyes on the road. “But you’re not exactly the one who gets the final say on this stuff, bud.” It would be convenient if he was, if Chris approved of Tanner and Xiaozhi together and tada, they’d magically be together, happily ever after, the end.

Tanner hasn’t heard from her since the hospital. She woke up and apologized for falling asleep on him, and Tanner figured she had things under control and left, and she was back in Canada by the end of the week, and that’s that. He’s not- it’s not like he expected anything different. She made herself clear: whether it’s the distance or the Chris thing or maybe just her cluing into Tanner being kind of a joke, she doesn’t want to pursue this. Him. “I’m not going to go after something she doesn’t want.”

Chris frowns at him. “She _likes_ you.”

“Yeah, we’re friends, I’d hope she does,” Tanner says.

“That’s not what I meant, Mack.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tanner says, and hits the brake too hard when the light changes to red.

Whatever stupid wisp of hope he’s hanging onto disappears into nothing when the days keep passing and she doesn’t reach out. It’s fine. If she wanted him before, she doesn’t now, and Tanner still loving her is his shit to deal with, not hers.

He ignores the little voice in his head telling him he’s a coward, that he’s not reaching out either, because fuck, he’ll take being a coward over hurting again, he’ll take that any day of the week.

\---

Tanner spends an ungodly amount of time icing his shoulder ever since he started filling in for Chris, because either his body’s in worse shape than he thought or taking a dozen faceoffs a night has gotten significantly harder since he last played center. He stays out late after each practice anyway, taking draws against whoever’s willing to help. Most guys are, to make the team better.

Team breakfast is what it normally is. Mikey’s trying to enlist everyone’s help planning his son’s birthday, Andy’s stealing grapes off of Fish’s plate – “I swear to god, Anderschuk-” “You don’t even like them!” – and Tanner tunes them out readily enough, takes his own table off to the side and opens the e-book app on his phone. It’s better than the chess app – no reminders to make a move or invite a friend.

He’s halfway through both his coffee and chapter ten of _Prisoner of Azkaban_ when Chris comes and sits across from him. Tanner scoots his mug over to give him more room. “Doc’s done with you that soon?”

Chris nods. “Iggy and I were going to watch some tape before you guys leave for Edmonton,” he says, and Tanner offers up a mental thank you to Iggy for not needing to be asked to include Chris in team stuff even though he’s out for the rest of the season.

“Awesome,” Tanner says, easy.

“Yeah,” Chris says, and then he looks around all covert before leaning in. Tanner’s stomach sinks. This, again.

Chris talks in this half-whisper. “I talked to my mom,” he says, without preamble. “I told her she’s allowed to date you.”

 _Allowed._ Tanner would bet money on that conversation not going over well. “And?”

Chris slumps down in his seat. “She said she’s my mother and an adult and she doesn’t need my permission to do things and then she was really angry in Mandarin for like an hour.”

Tanner grins in spite of himself. Xiaozhi’s a badass. “Kinda walked into that one.”

“Yeah,” Chris agrees, glum. “You guys are making this really complicated.”

Tanner swats at Chris with his book. “You’ve been dating the same person since you were like, three, _Christopher_ ,” he retorts.

“Fifteen,” Chris corrects. “I kissed him right after I found out he liked me. You should try that, maybe.”

“Are you giving me romance advice?” Tanner asks, incredulous, because, yep, he thinks this literal teenager is giving him romance advice. He doesn’t know what he pictured his late thirties being like, but it wasn’t this.

“Kind of,” Chris says; then, a little defensively, “It’s boring without hockey.”

“I can tell,” Tanner snarks, but he mostly lets it slide. He doesn’t have the heart to scold Chris with any real heat about this. Injuries are the worst. Injuries before playoffs are worse than the worst.

There’s a burst of laughter from the table where a bunch of the young guys are sitting. Tanner looks over at them, then back at his book.

“What?” he asks, when Chris is still staring at him maybe thirty seconds later.

“You’re doing the thing you said you did,” Chris says, matter-of-fact. It takes Tanner a second to place what he’s talking about, then- “where you sat with the dogs and didn’t talk to anyone.”

Tanner didn’t expect him to remember that, details from while he was in the middle of a panic attack in a bar his rookie year and Tanner was saying every possible thing that came to mind to try to help. He sort of wishes he hadn’t said this one. “I’m not eight years old, Chris, I’ll be fine.”

Chris doesn’t look satisfied with that answer. Not remotely. “You aren’t happy,” he says.

“I’m not… not happy,” Tanner says carefully. It’s the truth, or close enough. This isn’t back home. Not New York, either, where he could ruin his life and run away to put it back together and people mostly just let him. He doesn’t think the friends he’s got now would let him go that easy.

He’ll make it through the end of the season, get his routines back. He’s even got plans for the summer – he might finally go visit Iggy overseas, maybe go to Vancouver and take Kaitlyn to a museum or something. Maybe tag along with Claudia on some of her vet stuff. He spoke to Jason about him maybe not being there as much, maybe paying the local kids to work with the dogs. He expected to feel worse about not spending as much time at the old house, but he doesn’t.

Tanner has plans, and he’s okay. He’s okay, and sure, he’s going to be doing more of his plans alone than is ideal, but maybe he’s just- he’s just the kind of person who’s going to be alone. Maybe that’s the life he gets.

“I’ve been a lot worse,” Tanner says, and it’s a good attempt at optimism, he thinks, but Chris looks at him, hard. “Can you just,” Tanner asks before Chris can say anything else, a little wearily. “Can we just leave it, Chris, for today?”

And Chris still has that look in his eyes, the one he gets when he’s about to skate through an entire team, but right now he just holds Tanner’s gaze, then nods, like he’s decided something.

“Do you want to go sit with the team?” he asks.

Tanner shakes his head.

“Okay,” Chris says. “I can just sit with you.”

“You don’t have to,” Tanner says, and Chris doesn’t even bother responding, settling into his chair and taking out his phone.

They sit together the rest of breakfast, only occasionally talking. Tanner reads more of his book, doesn’t check his chess app, because he knows there won’t be any notifications, because he hasn’t heard from Xiaozhi and she hasn’t heard from him, either. He misses her. He just-

He misses her. That part hasn’t gone away yet.

Tanner listens to his team joking around across the room. His rookie across the table.

It’s maybe not enough. Not today and not forever. Still, it’s more than Tanner probably deserves, more than he thought he’d get, so he tries to be grateful, and mostly – mostly – succeeds.

\---

End of the regular season doesn’t feel quite as much like an ending, now that they’re in the playoffs. Launches them into a sort of no man’s land, maybe, the trip-wire intensity that comes when every game is life or death and the team as it exists now will only exist as long as they can make it.

They’ve got a week between their last game and the first game of round one. Tanner makes hockey his focus, takes extra line rushes and splits duties with Iggy to check in with each of the young guys, make sure they’re handling the pressure okay. He goes to bed early, cooks healthier than usual. Chris doesn’t complain about the food, the couple of times he comes to eat with Tanner. They watch tape. Things are normal.

Thursday afternoon, maybe feeling cagey with all of Tanner’s pent-up playoff nerves, Chris asks if they can walk Stacy in the park. Tanner agrees – it’ll be good to get out of the apartment and his own head – and lets Chris lead the way. He’s got a walking cast, now, this massive, bulky thing, and between him and Stacy the walk is slow going, but in a nice way. It’s good weather for getting outside, the temperature creeping towards summer but staying on the pleasant side of too-hot, at least for now.

They meander, a little, just making their way down Tanner and Stacy’s usual path at the park, chatting about the upcoming series with the Ducks, the other matchups around the league. Chris keeps looking around, just occasionally, at first, but then more and more pronounced, not so much just looking as looking _for_.

“Hey,” Tanner says, and Chris blinks at him, startled. “You good?”

“Yes,” Chris says, too fast, and then he looks over Tanner’s shoulder, down the fork in the path, and perks up. Tanner doesn’t get why until he turns and comes face-to-face with Luka, who – Tanner does a double take – is tugging Xiaozhi directly towards them, chattering the whole time. She looks bemused, and Tanner sees the moment she realizes it’s him and Chris standing there, is pretty sure the expression on her face mirrors his.

This can’t be happening.

“Oh my gosh, fancy running into you two here, right after your mom’s flight,” Luka says, bright, coming to a stop right next to Tanner.

“Yes,” Chris says, wooden like he’s reading off a teleprompter, and any tiny part of Tanner that still believed in the possibility of this being a coincidence shrivels up and dies. Fucking _teenagers_. “I’m surprised.”

Luka doesn’t miss a beat. He looks scarily like his mother. “Chris, did you want to keep walking and give these two time to catch up?”

“That is a really good idea, Luka,” Chris says.

Tanner’s going to murder both of them.

“Stace is going to get tired,” he tries, tossing out the first excuse he can think of, looking studiously anywhere except at Xiaozhi. “I should-”

“We’ll take her.” Luka plucks the leash from Tanner’s hand, bends down and scoops Stacy right up. She wags her tail at Tanner, the little traitor, and then they’re actually turning to leave, and Xiaozhi reaches out and clutches Chris’ sleeve.

“What are you doing?” she asks, and she’s doing her mom voice, the slightly terrifying one, but Chris just tugs his arm free, very gently.

“Don’t be mad,” he says, then something in Mandarin, really fast, and then, “I’ll see you at home. Bye, Mack.”

Tanner’s looking between him and Xiaozhi, desperate. “Uh, kid-”

“Christopher-” Xiaozhi says, and then Luka grabs Chris’ arm and drags him off, and Tanner and Xiaozhi are left standing there in the middle of the sidewalk.

Tanner tugs at his hair, looks up at the sky then back down at Xiaozhi in case she’s disappeared and this was all a dream, but she’s standing exactly where she was before, eyes bugging out a little, so, okay. This is Tanner’s life, apparently.

“They Parent Trapped us,” he realizes. “And stole my dog.”

“This is not how the plot of that movie goes,” Xiaozhi says; then, when Tanner raises an eyebrow, she clamps her mouth shut. “That was pedantic. I understood what you meant.”

She’s nervous, is the next thing Tanner realizes, which is weird but also probably understandable, considering she just got ditched with her annoying not-quite-ex. Tanner hopes she doesn’t think he planned this. Oh god.

“Uh,” Tanner says, trying to power through the awkwardness. Friends. They were friends first. “If we cut through the square we can probably beat them home.”

Xiaozhi nods, a jerky little movement, and falls into step next to Tanner – practically on the other side of the path – as they start walking.

The park’s not too busy, just a few families out on a weekday afternoon. There are a couple little kids chasing each other around the giant chess set, using the pawns as makeshift swords to whack each other, shrieking with laughter the whole time.

Tanner shoves his hands in his pockets. He hates how oppressive the silence feels, this uncertainty that hasn’t existed between them since maybe their first ever conversation. Maybe not even then.

“You- how are you?” he asks, grasping for something to say that’s not pushing at a boundary Xiaozhi doesn’t want pushed.

“Fine,” Xiaozhi says. “And you?”

“I’m good,” Tanner says, and they exchange these tentative smiles, and his heart skips a beat in his chest, and then Xiaozhi looks away. “Did you-”

“I got a full time teaching position,” she says, fast, and Tanner has to pause to digest that, because-

“Wait, seriously?” he asks; then, when she nods, he forgets that they were being uncomfortable, because- “Holy _shit_ , Xiaozhi, that’s great!”

“It’s with U of T, near home.”

“That’s a good school, right?” Tanner asks. “They’re good?”

“Yes,” Xiaozhi says, almost bemused, but there’s something in her eyes, something nearly sad, which makes no sense at all. “They’re very good.”

“Good,” Tanner says emphatically, and he means it, he’s so fucking proud of her. She deserves this more than anything, has deserved it for as long as he’s known her. “Good, that’s- they’re lucky to have you.” And he means that too, because she’s told him how impossible it is to get any kind of stable job as a professor, and he knows what this means for her being able to do her research and focus on what she loves, what she’s been working for forever.

It doesn’t make sense that she wouldn’t be happy about this. It doesn’t make sense at all, but Tanner- he knows her face, he knows what happy looks like on her, and she’s not that now.

“Why aren’t you more excited about this?” Tanner asks.

Xiaozhi looks at him then away, exhales like she’s steeling herself. “I interviewed here as well,” she says, and Tanner hears her, registers the words, but can’t quite make sense of them.

“Here,” he repeats, slow. He remembers Chris saying something about her being here for work, before their date, but… “Like-”

“Like here,” Xiaozhi says, matter-of-fact, or trying to be. “Where my son is.” She hesitates, looks up at Tanner, and this time, she doesn’t look away. “Where you are.”

Tanner’s whole world tilts on its axis.

He doesn’t mean to stop in his tracks in the middle of the path. Does, anyways, just stands there and stares at her.

“Where I am,” he says, because evidently all he knows how to do is echo, now, and he’s never heard his own voice so quiet, never heard anything at all like the pounding of his heart in his ears

“I’ve been speaking with Chris about coming here anyway,” Xiaozhi says, and she’s talking real fast, like making a list. “Because he will be in California for a long time, and I thought that if I was teaching nearby then I could pursue my professional goals and still be there for my son and the distance wouldn’t be an issue and you and I could feasibly-” She falters for the first time, like she’s just now realizing what she’s saying, or maybe just registering the look on Tanner’s face.

“I didn’t get the job,” she finishes, abrupt. “So. The topic is irrelevant.”

She looks mortified, just ducks past Tanner and crosses the path to sit down on the nearest bench.

Tanner blinks, hard.

He can’t-

Where he is. She wanted to be where he is.

He swallows, throat suddenly dry.

Tanner sits down next to Xiaozhi on the bench. Leaves space between them, like, a foot of space, because he’s not letting himself hope here, he’s _not._

“Sorry,” Xiaozhi says. Tanner can barely hear her.

“For what?” he asks, just as quiet, and Xiaozhi does this tiny little shrug, doesn’t say anything. She’s sitting up really straight, hands clasped tight together in her lap. It’s like- she looks controlled, real consciously composed.

She feels a lot. Doesn’t let herself show it, or tries not to, but it’s obvious, if you know how to look.

“You wanted to be here?” Tanner asks, catching her gaze and holding it, searching. “With me?”

Xiaozhi nods; after a pause, Tanner nods too, then looks out at the park, tries to will himself to think straight.

His mind is a mess, worse than before a game seven, worse than anything. He doesn’t know how to sort through the jumble of feelings, somewhere between hoping and knowing and completely fucking terrified that he’s going to get hurt again, because that’s what loving has been, is hurting.

Tanner wants so desperately for loving to be something better than that. To be worth the hurt, worth every risk out there.

The woman sitting next to him is, he thinks.

She wanted to be where he is.

“You have to know,” he starts, then falters. “Or, not- like, if I’m misreading this, tell me and I’ll fuck off, but if I’m not, Xiaozhi, you got to know that I want whatever you’re willing to give me.”

He says it plainly and doesn’t look away when Xiaozhi meets his eyes. She doesn’t pull back, doesn’t tell Tanner to fuck off, which are both good signs, but she doesn’t move closer, either.

“I want to take this job,” she says, like it’s admitting something.

“I mean… duh, you’re taking it,” Tanner says, because he thought that’s what she was saying in the first place, except Xiaozhi’s biting her lip, still looks exactly as troubled as before. Tanner frowns. She’s not actually- “Xiaozhi, you’re taking the job.”

Xiaozhi shakes her head, “I can’t ask you to-”

“Why would you _ask_?” Tanner asks, aghast, and Xiaozhi looks at him as if he’s the one not making sense.

“Because I’m actively choosing to prioritize my career instead of being where you and Chris are.”

“It’s not an either-or scenario,” Tanner says, real emphatic, and Xiaozhi gapes at him. She can’t be serious. “We’ll still be here, the job won’t.”

“You can’t just say that,” she argues, dismissive like she genuinely believes what she’s saying. “You can’t know that you’ll still want-”

“I can.”

“How?” she demands, and they’re going back and forth now, heated.

“Why do you think that me giving a shit about you is contingent on you being, like, immediately accessible?” Tanner counters, and it’s the first thing that makes Xiaozhi pause “You think that little of me?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Then why-”

“Because.”

“Good argument.”

“Because – ugh – I don’t know what I’m doing!” It sounds like it bursts out of Xiaozhi without her permission, stopping Tanner in his tracks. He didn’t know her voice went that loud.

Tanner shuts his mouth, just looks at her, thrown. He maybe shouldn’t be – they’re honest with each other. Have been for as long as they’ve been anything to each other at all.

Xiaozhi looks entirely laid bare, just staring up at him, and when she speaks, Tanner notices her accent for the first time in a long time, her words punched out one at a time like she has to force them. “I do not know how to do this, at all, I don’t- people do not just decide to _be here,_ things do not just happen without me making them, I don’t know how you can- offer what you’re offering when I offer nothing in return, I don’t understand.”

And Tanner’s shaking his head before she’s even done, not sure if he’s heartbroken or hopeful or both. “This isn’t nothing,” he says, and it’s quieter than before, whatever argument they were having split open between them. “How can you not- I don’t know how to make you believe me, that you’re- this is fucking everything.”

He’s turned all the way in his seat to face her now, their knees pressed together. “You getting something you want and wanting the people who care about you to help make that work isn’t asking anything that I’m not offering,” he says, low and earnest. “Anything I wouldn’t be fucking lucky to get to offer to you, Xiaozhi, you don’t get to make yourself miserable to make stuff more convenient for me, that’s not how this works.”

“’This’,” Xiaozhi echoes, a question.

Tanner answers, “Family.”

It’s not the answer he means to give. Still the best one there is, for what she is to him, for what the last two years have been.

It takes him a moment to realize what he said, looks like it takes the same moment for it to sink in for her, and then it does, and then they’re just looking at each other, nothing left hidden at all. It should be scarier than it is.

“I got two years left on my contract,” Tanner says. Just simple. “After that, I’m- wherever you want me, as long as you want me, I’m there.”

Xiaozhi’s covering her mouth with her hand again, doing the hiding thing she does. “Do you mean that?” she asks, damn near silently, and Tanner doesn’t know if she means the family thing or the wherever you want me thing, but he nods to both.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t,” he says, then, embarrassed, “I know it’s too much, I-”

“It isn’t,” Xiaozhi cuts him off mid-apology. “You aren’t.” And then she does this sound like a sob, and Tanner has to do a double take.

“Are you crying?” he asks.

Xiaozhi scoffs, wetly. “No,” she says, and she’s the most stubborn person on the planet but she still can’t lie to save her life, and Tanner can’t not laugh, overwhelmed.

“Yeah, you are.”

Xiaozhi’s shaking her head, blinking furiously. “I don’t _cry_ ,” she says, forceful. “I don’t do any of this, this is _so_ embarrassing and irrational and I-” She wipes at her eyes, hard. “I don’t know how to do this at all,” she repeats. “You are _not_ too much. I love you. That’s it.”

Tanner _stares_.

She just-

He feels like he’s underwater, the world slowed down and quieted to nearly nothing.

“…You love me?” he asks, and it comes out so, so tentative. He didn’t know he could sound this scared.

“Yes,” Xiaozhi says. For all her talk of not knowing, she sounds like she knows this. “I- yes. That.”

Tanner laughs again, this ridiculous, stunned thing, but it comes out real choked up and leaves him blinking hard, eyes blurred. He’s embarrassed, then, swiping at the tears that spring up, because he’s a grown man and he doesn’t cry either, really, and they’ve been all-but yelling at each other about emotions for ten minutes now, but it’s just that he can’t remember the last time someone other than his niece said ‘I love you’ to him. Can’t ever remember himself not being the one to say it first.

He missed it. He didn’t think he missed it this much, hearing ‘I love you’.

It feels really, really good.

“Now you’re crying,” Xiaozhi says, uncertain.

“Yeah,” Tanner agrees, and he looks skyward, tries to will himself to get a grip, and then Xiaozhi’s hand is on his jaw, tilting him down to look at her, and Tanner doesn’t mean to be holding on to the hem of her cardigan – always, with the cardigans – but he is, he’s got his hands by her waist, half-afraid to touch her in case she disappears.

“You-” he says, and he’s trying to make her laugh, to make some joke, because that’s what he does, but all that comes out is, again, shaky and disbelieving and younger than he means to sound, “You love me, really?”

“ _Tanner_ ,” Xiaozhi says, somewhere between chastising and maybe a little surprised, like her loving him is something that should’ve been obvious, and her hands are cradling his face so, so gently, like Tanner’s something to be gentle with, and he forgets to ask to kiss her this time, but judging by the way she holds onto him and kisses back, he doesn’t think she minds.

She _loves_ him.

Tanner kisses her cheek, the place her lips are curving into a smile against his, turns into where she’s holding him and kisses her palm, too; and then they’re leaning into each other, their foreheads pressed together, and Tanner can hear the kids laughing over at the chess set, can feel the sun warming his skin.

“I love you back,” he tells her, “I love you too, holy shit,” blunt and inelegant and the truest thing he’s ever said, and Xiaozhi kisses him again, hard, and Tanner feels it when she smiles against him, when she shakes like she’s trying not to laugh at herself.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this in public, this is ridiculous,” she says, right up close, and Tanner laughs, helpless, because she’s the kind of person to critique them for having a romantic moment in a park as the moment is still happening, and he loves her for it.

He thumbs at the tear tracks on her face, and her eyes are still shining but she’s laughing for real now, the big laugh that makes her cheeks squish up all cute. It’s still the best laugh Tanner’s ever going to hear, still fills him up and makes him feel like he could fly.

He’s got the cheesiest smile in the world on his face as Xiaozhi brushes back his hair from where the ends are falling in his eyes. It’s more of a mess than it’s been in a year. “Your hair is long again.”

Tanner presses his nose into her palm. “I can cut it.”

“I like it like this,” Xiaozhi says, and Tanner looks to see if she’s chirping, but she’s not, and it’s like- it hits him, then, that this is for real, that she sees him and knows him, all of him, stupid hair and ugly past and smartass mouth and all, and she wants him anyways. _Him._

It’s the most natural thing in the world for Tanner to pull her in close and kiss her again, then, and this time it’s not like a goodbye, not even close. This time it settles inside him like almost-Alaska, like an A on his sweater for a team that’s finally worth hope, like a chessboard waiting on the coffee table, like _home_.


	10. Epilogue

Ontario in summer is a different kind of heat than Tanner’s used to, because the sun’s only half of it – even when it’s cloudy, storms brewing, the air’s a stifling, muggy kind of heat, the kind that makes it a relief to get into the cold, stale air of the rink.

Or, like. It would be if Tanner could fucking breathe.

He fires the puck into the net, and hears Chris do the same behind him, quits paying attention right about there. They’ve been training together on the local rink, Tanner with Chris and his friend Meg, who’s the assistant coach for her college team and also a fucking drill sergeant, apparently.

“Jesus,” Tanner wheezes, doubled over to catch his breath. “Does she get tired, like, ever?”

Chris swerves to a stop next to him. He’s only been on skates again for a couple of weeks, still getting past being tentative. Still better than Tanner at half the drills they did today. “I told you,” he says, and skates back out of Tanner’s reach when Tanner swats at him half-heartedly.

“Don’t get cocky,” Meg orders, all business, scooping the pucks out of the net and skating one over. “I don’t care if you broke your leg, you’re not going to be at full strength by camp unless you get in better shape, Chan.”

Chris makes a face at her. “She has a poster of you on her bedroom wall,” he informs Tanner, petty, and Meg shrieks – “Oh my _god_ , Chris!” – and jumps on his back, and Tanner leans on the boards, grinning breathlessly as they shove each other around, laughing. Offseason training’s more fun when you don’t do it by yourself – who’d have thought.

It’s a while before he corrals the two of them, a couple more drills before they all hit the room to clean up and give the ice to whoever else has booked it. They dump their stuff into the back of the car, and Tanner blasts his music as they drive, bypassing the place he’s renting just off the highway, and heading for the Chans’ driveway.

Chris bumps Tanner’s fist for a good workout once they’re parked, gets out of the car and heads around the back of Luka’s place with Meg, presumably to find his boyfriend. Tanner leaves their gear in the car for later, heads to the front of the Smith-Patels’ and raps on the door before letting himself in. It’s immediately, ear-piercingly loud: the fire alarm is squealing, shrill, though it stops as Tanner heads for the kitchen and is greeted with the sight of Heather covering Stacy’s ears and Xiaozhi waving a dishtowel in a mostly-futile attempt to clear the oven of billowing black smoke.

“Having fun?” Tanner asks, ducking to kiss Xiaozhi’s temple as a hello.

“We’re not having spinach puffs anymore,” she informs him, dry, and Tanner grins at Heather, who’s holding Stacy over by the counter and looking distinctly guilty.

“We’re good at _other_ things, aren’t we, Stacy, yes we are.”

Stacy wags her tail cheerily, adoring the attention, and Xiaozhi meets Tanner’s eyes, more fond than exasperated, before going back to fumigating the oven. Tanner knows better than to try to distract her, just goes and pours himself a glass of lemonade from the jug on the counter, then another one in a clean glass.

“Oh, would you bring that out to him, hon?” Heather asks, nodding toward the tray of sesame seed buns, so Tanner grabs that too.

“You got it,” he says, and uses his elbow to push the screen door open and head out to the backyard, back into the wall of heat. Chris and Meg have found Luka, sitting over on the grass on a blanket and gesturing animatedly; Tanner leaves them to it, heads over to Vraj, standing by the barbeque and wiping his forehead.

“Smells good,” Tanner says, and Vraj grins, gratefully accepts the glass of lemonade.

“You made a good call on the pearl onions,” he says, real approving, and Tanner brightens in spite of himself. He likes Vraj, the way he carries himself as a husband and dad, the way he manages to sound equally interested in whatever anyone’s got to tell him. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“Old guys get to barbeque at every team event,” Tanner says, and it makes Vraj laugh out loud.

“My god, if you’re old, what does that make me?” he asks, and Tanner grins too, a little sheepishly, leaning back against the side of the house. He sighs, content right all the way down to his toes.

It doesn’t feel real sometimes, getting this.

He doesn’t always know what to do with it, the way he’s so happy it’s the same feeling in his chest as when he’s sad; Tanner gets to look around and hear people laughing and talking, people he likes and his girl and his rookie and his dog, and the only way he’s alone is if he seeks it out, which he can’t bring himself to do a whole lot, and that – it feels like he’s dreaming, when it hits him at moments like this, as if he’s going to wake up and open his eyes and be back to what and where he’s always been.

Vraj is watching Tanner, something appraising about it, when it occurs to Tanner to look. “You’ve been through the ringer, haven’t you?” Vraj asks, and it catches Tanner off guard.

It takes Tanner a second, but he tries for a laugh. "I-" he says. "I don't..."

Vraj looks thoughtful. “You know,” he says, slow. Casual, maybe on purpose. “We’ve known Xiaozhi since she was eighteen. I’ve never seen her smile this much.” He elbows Tanner. “We’re happy that you’re here,” he says, kind, and it puts a lump in Tanner’s throat.

“As long as they’ll have me,” Tanner manages to say, because it’s the truth, and Vraj smiles at him, and they both look over their shoulders when there’s a rap at the back door – it’s Xiaozhi, standing inside expectantly, arms full of plates and cutlery.

Tanner’s pushing himself up to help at once, clapping Vraj on the back and heading over to get the door for Xiaozhi.

“Thank you,” she says, and lets him take the plates from her arms, lightening the load.

“She manage to burn the house down?” Tanner asks, and Xiaozhi sighs.

“Getting closer.”

They set the table together, something like a routine, by now, Tanner setting down plates and Xiaozhi arranging forks and knives on either side. Not every meal they have together is this much of an event – Tanner’s got a soft spot for when it’s the two of them, picking a restaurant at random and trying it out when Xiaozhi gets out of work, picking a spot somewhere on her campus and sitting on the grass talking for ages – but all of them manage to feel the same kind of special, like a gift that Tanner didn’t expect and is going to spend forever trying to deserve. They fit together. Going on five months, they’ve been fitting together, like this. He’s so lucky.

“Y’know,” Tanner says, conversational, putting down a plate in his spot. “It’s probably a good thing that we’re going to be doing the long distance thing during the season.”

Xiaozhi hardly reacts, knows him well enough to know it’s a setup for something. “How?”

“Well,” Tanner says, “if I had access to Vraj’s cooking twenty-four-seven, I would not be in this kind of shape, I can tell you that right now.” He flexes his biceps, douchey on purpose so Xiaozhi will roll her eyes and pretend not to smile. “I’m so serious, this is a ticking clock, you got two years left to enjoy this.”

Xiaozhi makes fun of him, because that’s still priority one. “Two years is a lot of chess matches.”

“Yeah,” Tanner says, bumping her side, gentle. Then, because chirping is still his first priority, too, “Maybe you’ll finally win one.”

“I’ve won a hundred and sixteen out of a hundred and ninety-four,” Xiaozhi retorts without missing a beat. “Almost sixty percent, maybe you should try winning one, sometime.” Which-

Hang on.

Tanner gapes at her. “Have- you’ve been _keeping score_?” he asks, incredulous. “This whole time?”

Xiaozhi’s eyes widen, just slightly. She’s totally been keeping score. “…No,” she says, very dignified. Very lying. Almost sheepish. “Yes.”

Tanner looks at her, ridiculous and competitive and just his favourite person on the planet. “You’re incredible,” he tells her, just floored by her, same as always. “I’m so in love with you.”

“You can’t just say that every time I win an argument, you know,” Xiaozhi says, pretend-stern as she sets down the last fork.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Tanner says, getting a hand on her hip and spinning her around to face him as he perches on the side of the table; she relaxes easily into his touch, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. “First thing, just watch me, I love you, so there,” he says, just enough to make her soften, so he can follow up with, “Second thing, chess team, you think you were winning that? For real?”

Xiaozhi jabs at his stomach. “I _know_ that I was winning that,” she argues, but she’s happy and not trying to hide it at all, and Tanner scrunches up his face, goofy, so she’ll laugh.

Tanner gets this. This summer, as long as he’s playing and after, as long as she and Chris want him around – he gets to have this for his life. And everything before, when this is where he gets to end up-

Worth it, Tanner thinks, certain as anything, and he leans down, touches his forehead to Xiaozhi’s, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- if you read this whole thing: thanks <3   
>  \- listen: when tanner retires he takes extremely well to being a) a deeply enthusiastic volunteer at a local animal shelter and b) an only semi-accidental dad to any other volunteers who need it and c) a ruggedly handsome trophy husband at linguistics department social events.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Two Types of Sacrifices](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26459776) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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